


It's too dark

by blue_chocolate



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Death, Kidnapping, M/M, Torture, there are mentions of things that may be triggering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:59:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 56,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1229035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_chocolate/pseuds/blue_chocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a fight has gone wrong in an alley, Louis and Harry wake up in a pitch black cellar with nothing but mould and rats to keep them company. And, of course, the psycho with the knives one floor up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

It’s a late Saturday when Louis finds himself outside of the bar, hair washed two mere hours prior and up in a resplendent quiff and dressed in sleek clothes he thought had been thrown away, which would have been a shame because he’ll admit that he looks toothsome in this outfit. Although, it would have been convenient for his hair to _stay_ in a quiff as well and not ending up in a sulking swirl because of the small drops of rain falling down and bouncing off the street, but life has decided otherwise and this is something he will be forced to accept this evening.

He has spent the day storming around town in a pair of worn vans to execute certain tasks handed to him by his professors and mother (such as buying birthday present for his cousin or someone that adores fashion straight from London – he doesn’t even know the girl, hasn’t met her on a single get-together with the entire fat family, so why should he of all people deem what fits Penelope for her birthday?) and when he hasn’t done that he has tried to relax to the best of his ability, watch some TV for a second or read before he’s up to choose attire and hairstyle. He has taken a hasty shower where he slipped on some soap and avoided post mortem, sorted out all papers piling up on his desk (which needs to be replaced with another one soon because the thing isn’t going to last for long) and even cleaned the first half of his ratty flat.

Yes, so far this has been a relaxing day.

Spring has come early this year, and it’s the first time in the year of 2014 that he has left his home for something besides studying or visiting his family back in Doncaster. The season came with promises of a warm continuation of March and strong sunshine and long lazy days outdoors once the temperature was good enough. That hasn’t arrived yet, though, as March just switched to April and all the different flower species have just started waking from their month-long slumber.

He has always favoured spring, even if summer is the obvious popular time of the year. It’s calming to hear the birds return to serenade on his windowsill and follow him around as he goes out for a run in the nearby woods; he looks forward to when the sun stays up an hour or two longer and he can sit out in the backyard or on the balcony to watch the sunset and read; he loves the fact that he doesn’t need to put on socks in the mornings because he’ll be fine anyway in his low shoes, and he gets (at least somewhat) excited for the last exams to push through before he receives his grades and then there is the huge break between the finished semester and the next one.

Spring has arrived to London with small dandelions breaking through the thick asphalt pavements and Louis could be happier but right now life is great in general.

He scratches his neck as he avoids the rain drizzling down the best he can and hides under the grey coat hanging off of his shoulders – a birthday present from his mother and twin sisters. The fabric is on its way to get completely soaked, even though only tiny water drops fall with a few seconds in between until the next slips from the clouds and sucks into the coat. He will be dripping wet by the time he makes it all the way to the entrance and with that in mind he takes off the coat to hold it over his head as he scurries past business men with umbrellas and women with far too high heels to be considered legal. He wonders what they’re doing out this late on a Saturday.

As he approaches the bar he sees a bouncer in black (the colour makes the man melt into the wall behind, creepy really) who leans back with his arms crossed. Louis has seen them before, giant and frightening looking guys built of only muscles, but the times are rare since the party-like stuff he usually goes to are held at someone’s house, and the last time he went to a bar was just before the winter holidays months ago. He didn’t think that there’d be a bouncer outside of this place though, but luckily enough he has his ID with him, which he flashes to the man who just gives a curt nod and then he’s inside, tucked away from the rain outside.

Music pumps through the closed door in front of him and he shakes his head, running a hand through his hair as he snatches a hanger from the open closet that stands there. Soft orange lamps hang off the wall and a door with cursive letters forming “toilets” is to his left accompanied by a gloomy looking plant just inside of the entrance.

He tries to sort out his hair, dragging it in all different directions with force and pinching it between his fingers but it refuses to obey him. With a sigh he slips through the door to the toilets and scans the room to find it empty, the stalls to his right all open and free from any kind of mess and people. Spots of water and a thin layer of dust taint the mirrors up front by the sinks but other than that everything is neat.

It smells like shit in here with its mix of too much detergent and toxic piss so he goes to work quickly. He squints his eyes and moves his hands to his hair again, trying desperately to fix the mess, cursing the hair wax he left at home on the counter. A part of him knew that he should have brought the damn thing, but the spare space in his pockets ran out and the time had escaped his grasp so he simply skipped, bounding out the door and sliding down the stairs from his flat.

The thing is that you don’t want to get out too late because then the clubs and bars are all full and most people are already wasted, but if you get out too early then late-working people crowd the streets and the entertaining places haven’t opened yet. Louis managed to time it rather perfectly, if he may say so himself. And now with his hair fixed he also looks less unappealing, so, everything is good. That’s what he keeps in mind as he enters the bar with a deep breath that sticks to his throat when a whole sea of people fills is vision.

There are a shit-ton of guys and men and boys in there and for a second he just wants to run and maybe study because doesn’t he have a test on Tuesday? The actual bar is far to the right, past all the dancing and grinding enabling his full sight of the alcohol being served, and the rest of the room is tables and couches and dance floor. To say that he feels misplaced might have been the beginning to the written collection of Louis Tomlinson’s feelings in bars, and after that there is a whole other level of things he needs to figure out about himself sometime but tonight isn’t one of those times.

First things first, he thinks as he stumbles through the crowd and earn a few appreciating smiles and lands on a tall chair by the bar. He hasn’t even opened his mouth before he receives a drink shoved in his hands and he gives the bartender a quizzing look. The man has to yell even as he leans forward since the music is much too loud in here for Louis to hear his words. “From the guy over there!”

Louis’ eyes widen in surprise and he grabs the glass, looking around for who the bartender meant as he sips the blue drink. It burns its way down his throat and he cringes, face scrunching up as he puts the glass back down. He now sees that the bartender helps him, pointing in the general direction of whomever Louis looks for and if he doesn’t nearly choke on the vodka. “Damn.”

Louis can’t see much because of the darkness and distance between them, but the guy is fit and that’s more than obvious, so he shoots him a quick smile as he forces himself to guzzle down the alcohol once more – it burns less this time – and the man smiles back, starts to make his way over, and maybe Louis isn’t ready for this. Not as ready as he thought. His arms shake and his leg jumps up and down on the thin footrests connected to the backless chair he’s perched up on when he spots the man again, now leaning over the counter and saying something to the bartender. He’s more attractive up close, so Louis looks away for a second to calm himself, _chill_ as his sisters always tell him. He does not need to _chill_.

There is a familiar face in the ocean of men who has met his gaze with a horrified one and Louis turns away before he recognizes the face. He still has a half full glass of what he’s positive is vodka mixed with some other shit he’ll never try again so he closes his eyes and downs it in a few gulps. It’s been about five minutes at max since he entered the bar and he can already feel his thoughts float away on soft pink clouds, a light breeze pushing them out of his reach.

Something tells him that he’s being spoken to, but it’s hard to hear over the music, so he spins around on the chair, glass sliding around where it still sits between his teeth. The man from earlier talks to him, wonderful mouth moving and saying something about dancing, Louis thinks, so he nods and makes dispose of the empty glass and put it on the dark shiny counter. He is tugged out on the floor, around bodies and over exaggerated dance moves, the constant smell of sex and alcohol in his nostrils and a faint grin on his vodka lips and a giddy feeling in his gut.

There are lots of things Louis knows he’s good at, like painting, acting and singing, but among those things he can’t do – which he’s also aware of – is dancing, and now he starts to question why he came here at all tonight, or any other night. But, as Niall’s excuse always reads, _gotta keep livin’ while yer young, eh?_ Louis has adopted that line to use as he feels fit.

Before he has the change to embarrass himself with the dancing, though, someone that is not his dancing partner grabs his shoulder and pulls him backwards, much to his annoyance and despair. All he can do is follow because geez this guy is stronger than he thought, and he watches the crowd thin out the further away he’s dragged back. Finally, when he thinks he’s about to be thrown out of the bar, he yanks himself out of the man’s grip, and when he turns he realizes who he saw in the sea of people before. It’s hard to stifle the laugh that comes bubbling up.

“Styles?” Louis leans against the dark wall with his arms crossed and smirks at the one year younger male. “The hell are you doing here?”

“Listen,” Harry begins and if Louis isn’t mistaken the poor boy looks the teeniest tiniest bit scared, but also furious, “you keep your mouth shut about this, alright?”

Now is where Louis lets out a low chuckle that isn’t audible over the sounds in the room. “Why? I think everyone would be rather excited to hear that _the_ womanizer Harry Styles is gay.”

“Shut up,” Harry grits but Louis just grins wider. This is really something. He knows how pissed and hurt he’d be if someone had told the entire school that he was gay, but he took care of that on his own about three year ago and walked out without a wound in his soul or on his body. Besides, he isn’t fond of Harry, so, why not?

“Why should I?” he asks and he can practically see Harry’s patience run off of him like water and gather up on the floor to then vanish into thin air. “Why should I let the latest gossip slip between my fingers just because you ask me to? That’s not how it works in this world, Styles, and I thought you would have known that.”

“Louis-“

“I’d like to see you beg, though,” he continues as if Harry has duct tape over his mouth, preventing him from speak more as Louis speaks up once more, “’m not saying that it would help, just that-“ Harry grabs his arm, lifting him off of the floor and he yelps, eyes going wide when he understand what’s most likely to happen.

“We’re gonna take this outside then or shall I beat the shit out of you in here instead?” Harry huffs, eyes glowing like intense fire in the dark and piercing through his own. “Your choice.”

“Outside,” Louis coughs. It’s difficult to breathe when only his toes touch the floor. Harry drops his arm and Louis’ hand goes to rub it, red marks already blooming out over his skin that has yet to tan in the coming summer sun. “Fucker,” he mutters just as Harry puts a firm hand on his back, pushing him against the door in front of them – in the corner of the bar – that reads “exit” with glowing green letters. His fingers curl around the handle and he takes a second to breathe and prepare for the sure beating that’s about to take place, then he pushes the door open.

Outside is colder than earlier, and he acknowledges the fact that his coat is still inside the entrance of the bar, still dripping since he can’t have been here for more than ten-fifteen minutes. Harry is right behind him, his breath clear in the night now that the rain has ceased, and Louis knows that he can just run. Run and avoid possible broken ribs and a bleeding nose, but then there’s that damn pride he has. A pride that does prevent him from running away even when his opponent doesn’t and a pride that tells him that they should settle the thing like men.

“So,” Louis says when he turns as the door clicks shut, Harry glaring at him from the other side of the alley, all black clothes and bad-boy act up. Louis takes a moment to stretch his joints and study Harry’s form, what his strengths and weaknesses are, and he sees that the younger male does the same thing, eyes running up and down Louis’ body.

“So,” he repeats, meeting Louis’ gaze and Louis half expects him to spit on the ground or take out a knife or something, but of course he doesn’t. Louis straightens his back but neither of them has moved an inch since they got outside. It feels like he’s burning holes in Harry’s skin with his eyes so he closes his them just for a second and then there’s the first hit to his jaw, and really, how the fuck did Harry skip those metres between them that fast?

Louis stumbles, clutching his jaw and opens his eyes to glare at Harry who seems to wait for Louis to make the next move, his fist still clenched and his shoulders moving up and down as he takes breath after deep breath.

Fine.

Louis pushes his body away from the wall and lets his jaw tighten and loosen to feel the damage, which isn’t a lot so he wonders if Harry even tried at all. Louis is positive that the boy would be able to do some serious damage if he wanted, so he doesn’t understand why he is free from wounds and bruises as they have been out by themselves a few minutes already. His own fists curl and he observes the corner of Harry’s lips quirk upwards. A second later the taller male has received a kick to his inner thigh and an uppercut to his ribs, a small but strong growl slipping from his lips.

Louis avoids the next hit from Harry and moves around him; trying to remember any moves from Rocky he can recall as he jumps back to seal himself off from Harry’s fists. There are wet pieces of cartons on the asphalt together with mouldy fruits and vomit and he tries to keep in mind that they are slippery death traps when he just barely moves out of reach for a hit. However, there is no way for him to avoid the kick that comes to his shin, and he lets out a small whimper when he falls back to the wall. He has just enough time to reach out his hands to push against the brick wall to stop his fall, roll around against the building and hear Harry hiss in pain as his fist hits the wall. Louis wants to tell him “ _bad luck_ ” but he isn’t _that_ stupid, so he just shakes his head clear from fuzz and stares at the way Harry moves, studies his body language.

So long he has only been the one covering himself up, taking each and every one of Harry’s punches, and as Harry twists his head to spit on the ground he takes his opportunity to sneak around him and plant a fine kick to his left knee. _Always aim for the knees, eyes or throat,_ he’d read in a book last year, and now the advice came to good use. The thought makes him smile and fills him with even more adrenaline than before.

Harry makes a grab for his arm and Louis only has time to pull away half the distance needed. The younger boy’s fingers tighten around his thin wrist, dragging him up against his body and slamming him into the wall. Louis feels his breath against his neck and drives his knee up into his crotch. Well, he would have if Harry didn’t twist his arms around so that his back now was against the taller’s chest.

“I could break your neck,” Harry breathes, and now is the best time to freak out, Louis thinks as he stares wide-eyed into the brick pattern that fills up his vision.

“You won’t though,” he says and he hates how weak he sounds, but then again, he has no resistance to make when Harry holds him like this, wrists locked behind his back and fingers gripping Harry’s shirt, trying to channel the pain from the rest of his body to his fingers.

“How can you be sure,” Harry all but asks and Louis is about to shrug when his arms are yanked more down and back and he cries out in pain.

“Fucking hell,” he mumbles and squeezes his eyes shut, trying to feel how Harry stands behind him so that he can turn the situation around to his advantage. “Because you’re not a murderer.”

“Who said that breaking your neck would kill you?” Harry chuckles and twists his wrists further. Louis can just about hear bones cracking inside of him. He bites a hole in his lip and tries to focus on the blood pouring out from there instead of the stretching of his arms. _Fuck_ that hurts. “I’m just protecting my reputation.”

“I don’t give a bloody fuck about your damn reputation!” Louis shouts and Harry replies by pressing him against the wall again, forehead scraping against the rough material and small lines of blood running into his eyes.

“Fuck you,” Harry hisses and puts his whole body weight on Louis so he can break a hand free and push away the curls from his face. Louis can just make out the faint pump of Lady Gaga from inside and he knows that his oldest sister would sing along on top of her voice to the song. She has a lovely voice. “Just because you got accepted?” Harry spits.

Louis sniffles and breathes shallow breaths as Harry contemplates over what to do next.

“Just because you… because you fit in and had nice friends and an accepting family, just-“ His voice cracks and Louis feels the grip in his wrists tighten and lighten enough for him to move them to a bearable position – something that Harry doesn’t take notice of.

“You shouldn’t have to be afraid,” he mumbles and Harry scoffs, squishing his arms again and moving his free hand to take a handful of Louis’ hair with the new won ability to rub his face against the small sharp bumps in the wall and create even more narrow waterfalls of blood.

“Just shut up Louis,” Harry says, now with a steadier voice but his body has weakened remarkably and they both know it. “Please shut up.” All Louis can hear are Harry’s breaths and the silent dripping of water hitting the ground, falling from the waterspouts above that snakes alongside the houses in between which they stand. His breathing is ragged, uneven and hot in the cold night air.

Louis swallows once more and closes his eyes, relaxing in the first calm moment since they left the security of the bar and bodies in there, and Harry lets him go. The taller steps back, away from him, and Louis stares into the wall again, counting the seconds he doesn’t hear a single sound before he turns around. A fist is all he sees and cries out in pain when it hits his eye. He wants to scream, curse, just do something, but all his body wants is to watch as Harry’s chest heaves, lips parted and Louis’ brain just now catches up with reality.

He flies against Harry, growling as he manages to push the younger’s body into the garbage hidden in the corners of the alley. Louis can’t see anything colourful in the dark, or the shapes that form Harry, but the sounds from bins falling over is enough to give him some kind of clue on where his opponent can be.

That’s why he’s taken by surprise when he feels someone lock his arms behind his back.

He fights back, tries to run forward as his legs work against the person behind him to carry him forth, but he stops moving for a second as he’s being lift off of the ground, feet dangling free and something going up to cover his mouth. He screams through whatever it is and his eyes widen at the muffled voice. Panic starts to set in and the adrenaline pumps through his veins once again, his nails burying themselves in thick flesh and all he gets in response is a deep grunt and a knock into the wall with his head first. It fills him with a sick dizziness he does his best to ignore.

He can hear the bins stop to scramble and Harry’s voice, and that’s when he freaks out for real, squirming in the man’s grasp and trying to see through the weak falling rain and blackness. Something like a bang against metal echo in the alley and he whimpers, looks down on where the ground floats past as he’s being carried forward to God knows where. Maybe these men are cops? Maybe they saw him and Harry fight and have come to take them down to the station – there was a weak death threat after all.

He tries to call for Harry but his voice comes out choked and broken as his lungs rest on top of a meaty shoulder that cuts into his chest, enough to make it hurt with each step the man takes forward. His shirt has ridden up above his waist, raindrops hitting the bare skin and running down his nose and gathering in his lashes and on his lips. Vodka mixes with blood on his tongue and the is only thing he can smell where he’s bouncing forward on the street. He hopes, prays, that someone will look up from their damn phone, tear their eyes from the football match on TV and take notice of him. That perhaps some by-passer or driver spots him being carried through the rain and finds the whole thing suspicious, so they step out and save him, call the police or whatever. They find him and he will be let down on the ground again, away from these men.

It’s like he’s moved a mile when the man tosses him to another position on his shoulder and Louis whines at the pain shooting through his stomach and ribs, eyes clenching shut until he sees small white dots float to the surface of the nothingness he stares into. Someone walks beside him, and when he looks up after a lot of mental convincing to his body he meets Harry’s eyes, wide in fear as he’s being carried as well. If the way Harry looks is anything to go by then Louis has a piece of fabric stuffed in his mouth, tied around his neck and running along his jaw.

Now he hears the music from the bar fade out, so they can’t have travelled more than a few metres on foot, but with the way he’s burring his gaze in the ground they might as well have been driving away on a motorbike. Every line and bump he can use to see where they’re going – use to find a clue of some sort – melt together into a pit of darkness and not the usual raw and bright colours you see in spring. His ribs grow numb where flesh and bone digs into the skin, and his breathing becomes more and more limited. That only causes everything to blur even more, and when he with his last powers lift his head up he can see a halo of lights and a large silver shaped thing up ahead.

Harry moves beside him, and he turns his head so he can peek through his heavy eyelashes. The boy tries his best to roll of his capturer’s shoulder, fall onto the ground and run away from here, but that makes the man lift his hand to hit him in the skull and after that Harry’s head lolls forward, his voice fading out into the night.

Louis tries to stay calm as a door opens and he and Harry are being hoisted into a car, the large space there covered in dirt in the light from the street and boxes piling up in the corners. It’s a solid iron cage, Louis realizes as he’s dumped into the vehicle, his cheek hitting the cold metal and a whine crawling out of his throat. He isn’t quite sure when it happened, but his wrists are tied together behind his back, the fabric still tied around his head to keep his mouth shut and Harry looks about the same. The younger boy has a cut by his temple, a thin stream of blood running down to his cheek and making his hair gross and sticky.

As the door shuts all light in the space disappears and Louis hears voices discussing outside. He wants to know – needs to know – what they’re talking about, but all sound outside of the car is muffled and once he starts to get used to it the voices go away and someone slams the door to the driver’s seat. With eyes adjusting to the lack of light he can barely make out Harry’s unconscious form a feet or two away from him.

Sounds of an engine starting up fills his ears and he doesn’t even register that he’s held his breath ever since he was grabbed and had a shoulder cutting off his air intake. They’re on the move now, he knows, feels it as the car jumps up and down over the road, and he takes a moment to close his eyes – diving into a shade of the darkness he’s comfortable with – and relax his jaw so that he can try to move away the gag from inside his mouth where it’s collecting saliva.

It won’t move.

He twists his wrists, gasping when they start to burn from Harry’s previous assault, and lets his fingers run over the material locking them together. It isn’t quite like rope, but with touch as his only active sense he understands that he won’t get out of it unless someone cuts it off or undoes it. Whatever it is, it’s firm and scrapes against his already sore skin, tearing it apart when he shifts his weight to a more comfortable position where he leans his upper body against the boxes nearest him. Blood marks his surface where it slides from his forehead where he was rubbed against the brick wall and from his tied wrists down to form deep puddles in his palms.

In time with the first tear he starts to think about home. The walls pressing in on him in the black reminds him of when his sisters were younger and they’d play hide and seek before bedtime. Felicity would cling to his leg and jump up and down, whisper shouting “ _the closet Lou, the closet!_ ”and they’d hurry through the halls, away from whoever was counting, and slide through the doorway. Their closet wasn’t spacious but every time the two siblings were hiding Felicity would convince him one way or another that the closet was the best spot to hide, and Louis would just smile at her and let her ride on his back as they searched for the perfect spot. It’d hurt him sometimes, and his sisters would always laugh at him and tell him how old he was, but that was just something he had to live with.

Once Felicity had closed the door to the closet she’d run around in the pile of the clothes in there and then drop down under it, calling for Louis to turn the lights off and hide before Charlotte had finished counting. He’d open his eyes as wide as they’d go to see in the room and feel with his foot before he put it down, afraid that he’d step on his baby sister, and he’d usually take a spot behind the coats hanging in lines on the wall. Of course, Lottie had learnt where they were hiding, so the first place she went to search for her siblings was the closet. All she had to do was lift a shirt and then she’d see Felicity grin up at her and sometimes the younger would just jump up and scare the shit out of here. It was those times Louis barked out a laugh and was found, but it was so worth it.

There is a slight different between the darkness in the closet and the darkness in the back of the van, but if he closes his eyes it’s like home.


	2. Part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you have any questions about the story I'll be happy to answer them :) (as long as the answer doesn't contain any spoilers oops)

A strong odour of something unknown wakes Harry.

It lingers in the air around him, pokes at him and stings when he inhales it. He knows that it’s got to be either the stench of vomit in the alley he has passed out in, or his mother putting a tray of breakfast and tea on his night stand – but he can’t feel what’s underneath him, what he’s lying on, so he can’t know which one it is. He opts for the first option though, when he feels that the surface is cold and the left side of his face sticky, most likely from a puddle of vomit next to him. Maybe he’s covered in the stuff.

It takes far too many attempts to open his eyes until he realizes that he has a bruise right there (fucking Tomlinson) or that his face is pressed against the concrete. With that in mind he tries to move, manages to lift his arm and push his body up with a groan. If he had passed out in an alley, wouldn’t there be sound of cars or people talking in the distance or at least something other than the faint dripping he’s hearing right now?

He reaches out his leg to feel the wall on the other side of the alley, but nothing meets him. Only the scramble and clinking of something like buckets falling to the ground. A heavy object falls on top of his leg, hitting him where he was kicked last night. He cries out and shuffles back to bumps into what feels like a wooden desk and he stills, freezes completely when he realizes that there is no way this can be the same alley he remembers from yesterday. Now he picks up sounds from around him. The noise of the falling buckets rolling over the wet ground to create a symphony of sounds that hurts his ears worse than what came out of his old cat’s throat when he yanked its tail. Among those things one sound captures his interest from somewhere opposite him.

It’s something between a whimper and a mumble, and it sends chills down his spine knowing that he’s not alone in here. He throat hurts, has a sort of throbbing in it, but he needs to know who’s with him, so he opens his mouth to speak but all that comes out are a few horrid coughs and spit he has no strength to stop. As his body shakes he feels the reason to why he can’t see. Something ties around his eyes, pressing his eyelids closed and making small red spots appear if he tries to open them.

His right hand goes up to untie the thing to find it loose already. The throbbing in his throat increases in level with his heartbeat as his fingers curl around the fabric, and then he tears it off.

There is barely any light in the room, so all he has to his help is a tall rusty lantern that burns his eyes and stands in a puddle of water a feet or two away from him. Walls, ceiling and floor resembles hard, dry mud and is smooth like rock with boxes and forgotten furniture placed in different corner of what Harry can only guess is a basement. The water has crept in through holes in the stone like material and risen from underground and he is just happy that the water level isn’t above his knees. The lantern shines on the sharp edges of a large variety of broken and useless items lining the walls and on a few blankets gathered in a wet pile in the middle of the room. Besides all things that surrounds him is the source of the whimpers.

“Louis?” he says, voice low and rough and he coughs once more as he tries to stand. The older boy has a gag preventing him from speaking and his hands tied together with thick wires behind his back, cutting into his skin and creating bracelets of new wounds and scars from yesterday. Harry can’t see his eyes through the shadows, but they’re wide in panic.

The taller male falls back to the ground and onto his bum after his fifth attempt to stand and starts crawling over the floor towards Louis instead, his body hurting with bruises and small cuts and he winces every time some of the water on the floor makes its way into his flesh. He can only hope that it isn’t poisoned or anything worse.

He reaches Louis who tries to shuffle away from him but is met by a hard wall, and Harry pushes himself up on his knees, studies the boy in front of him who is still hidden in the shadows despite the short distance between them.

“Hey,” he mumbles, and he isn’t sure why he does it since he and Louis are as good as enemies but the next words are out before he can stop himself. “Give me your hands.” Louis stares at him for a moment and Harry sees the fear seep out from him, being replaced with something he can only describe as relief. Soon enough Louis has turned around, his bleeding wrists on display for Harry to take care of. The wire coated in fresh and dried blood ties them together and looks firm and difficult to break – it’s thin and sharp and Harry knows that it’ll hurt when he attempts to remove it.

“I’ll see if I can find something to cut it off, okay?” he informs and Louis only nods, a small whimper slipping past his lips as his figure curls in on himself. Harry stands up on his knees and spins around in search for something to help him. He knows that a knife or piece of metal is too much to wish for, but with a basement stocked with items there has to be _something_ other than cushions with their stuffing hanging out and sturdy cupboards with their doors torn off.

He still doesn’t know where the scent he feels comes from, but he thinks that it’s best not to know in this case. His legs are numb when he drags himself across the basement once more, eyes wide to cut through the dark and his fingers functioning as smaller legs as he slides through the water. It cools him down more than he likes. Panic has yet to set in and he knows that when it comes it won’t be a pretty sight.

Something glows in the light on top of a rotten bench that catches his attention, shimmering and peeking out of a closed box. To reach it he only has to stand, something his body has decided not to allow. He huffs, pulling up his foot so that he stands on one knee and one foot, then clenches his eyes as he moves the next foot to carry his weight. Before he has time to fall his fingers grip the object and pulls it with him down when his body collapses. Whatever it was that he found it’s sharp, and when he lands it cuts a thin line over his forearm. He hisses and clutches the skin, rolling over on his back and staring up at the ceiling where the light from the lantern puffs like orange waves over a beach – a place much more pleasant than this one.

With the item in hand (which proves to be the tip of a broken iron frame or something – works as good as a knife) he makes his way back to Louis, says something incoherent so that the older boy will know what he’s doing and then takes the wire in hand, twisting it around first to make it easier to cut off. Louis shakes, his wrists cut open and on a good way to get infected, so Harry tries his best to work quickly.

The blade slips in his fingers and tears holes in his skin, so he moves the edge of it to let the fabric of his shirt cover it up before he starts sawing the wire in two. Louis does his best not to squirm but it’s hard when he can feel cool steel against his arms and palms whenever Harry slips, and it’s even harder to keep quiet when the material falls off his wrists and reveals the abused skin to the cool air in the room. He winces, putting his hands between his thighs and squeezing them together to prevent any more blood from flowing out and he can feel Harry’s gaze in his back, staring at him. Just then he realizes that his hands are now free to remove the gag.

Harry watches him splutter, rest his weight on all fours with his sore wrists in a puddle in front of him and he takes fast deep breaths as if he hasn’t tasted air in years. He wants to help Louis, do something to ease whatever pain he’s feeling, but he can’t. So he sits back, waits for Louis to start to function again and looks around in the room.

“You,” is what comes from Louis when he’s finished, sitting back powerlessly against the wall with his arm resting over his tummy and his face screaming agony.

Harry snorts. “You’re welcome.”

Louis’ eyes scan the room once and his fingers trail over the ground and wall on which he leans on. “Where the fuck are we? How did we get here?”

“And how the hell am I supposed to know? Never mind, what happened yesterday?”

“I don’t know.” His voice is quieter now but holds more frustration and pure anger than Harry thinks possible. “All I remember is you pushing me out into that alley and beating the shit out of me.”

“Oh,” Harry says and tries to see Louis properly in the dark so he can at least throw a glare, “so this is all my fault?”

“Shut up,” Louis snaps and hisses when the sudden shift of his body causes water to splatter up and cut into the blood bracelets around his wrists. “And no, that’s not what I was saying-“

“What the fuck _are_ you saying then?”

“I’m saying that you’re not _listening!_ ”

“You fucking started!”

“Stop behaving like a five year old,” Louis snarls and gets to his feet with an ineffective hand rubbing his neck and squeezing his eyes shut at the pain shooting down his spine. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” A part of him waits for Harry to talk back even more but he’s only met with a hollow silence and a dull throbbing in his wrists. Harry might as well have disappeared from the room. He starts walking from wall to wall, stretching out his joints and taking note of the condition everything’s in while attempting to keep panic deep in a cage inside of him and locked away from his brain. There has to be a weaker point somewhere, a flaw that will surely get him out of here in one piece.

The room looks more like a storage room in his opinion, a cramped one with far too many items and inherited stuff scattered around mindlessly without any particular order. Big rocks stick out from the ceiling, so he suspects that they are outside. Then there is, of course, the door in the ceiling from where thin streaks of light seep through and he rises to go and take a closer look when echoing steps are heard from above, slow moving and dragging across the floor. He swallows and drops to the ground, moving his legs up against his chest and makes himself as tiny as possible. Harry also stares upwards on the other side of the room, never blinking and completely still like a statue. Louis can feel the blood pump in his ears, rush around and occupy his thoughts, force him to think about that sound and that sound only.

“Harry-“

The door in the ceiling opens and the ladder rolls down with a terrible creak before he can say anything more. It hits the floor with a thud, causing water to scatter over the ground from the puddle it landed in and he feels his breathing sink to a non-existent minimum as he waits for something to happen.

It’s that kind of quiet where you can’t know for sure whether your heart is really beating or not, or if it’s just imagination striking at the most inappropriate time. Strong, blinding light shoots through the opening, so evilly white to them both and stabs their eyes like spears of sharp ice. A pair of fat legs comes into view, followed by a large body and head and soon enough a man stands in front of them. Louis can’t see his face with the brightness from behind, but the man reminds him of the bouncer from yesterday with his mountain of flesh and intimidating appearance. He can just about feel the lack of Harry’s breath next to him and he’s sure that the male has evaporated. It’s the only explanation to the lack of fear and warmth next to him.

The man has a bush of grey hair atop of his skull with a chin that pulls toward the floor by gravity and the appearance would have made Louis bark out a laugh if it’d been another time and place, which it’s not. He observes the man’s gaze shifting from himself to Harry’s small form huddled into the boxes behind him. The man tilts his head forward and back once in a faint nod and Harry dares to glance over at Louis. Both have yet to move.

“You, the curly one,” he rumbles and Harry’s focus snaps back to the male in front of them who shields off enough light for the boy to see his empty facial expression. It’s quite literally like he’s made of stone. “Get up.” Once again Harry turns to Louis and opens his mouth to speak. Louis isn’t surprised when nothing comes out.

Harry shrieks when the man bolts forward and yanks him up with two gigantic calloused hands under his armpits, thrashing in the larger’s grasp until his legs give out from the sudden pressure and he’s lifted up over the man’s shoulder like a ragdoll. He throws Louis a last look of utter desperation but Louis is frozen where he sits as his nails press into and reopens his wounds.

The man climbs up with a problem and drops Harry to the floor with a violent bang that shakes Louis’ core when he bends down to roll the ladder back up, leaving the room in nothing but that golden light form the lantern glowing from the middle of the room.

Time doesn’t pass in the dark, and Louis only knows that it does because of the blood drying on his wrist in sync with his throat and the screams ripping from an unknown location above. It doesn’t even sound like Harry, to be fair. They’re too shrill, too different from his regular voice to belong to him. But they do, Louis knows they do because he hears the cries for help in between the screams and he feels the tears on his skin as these are the tears he’ll come to identify as Harry’s.

So Louis attempts to distract himself. Ideas start to fill his head, that maybe these people are cannibals and snatch people to chop up and eat them, or that they’re trading humans for drugs and will only keep them here for a short amount of time before they’re dragged off to the next place, or that they will skin them alive and sell their skin on e-bay.

These thoughts do not help. Harry still lets out heart-shredding whimpers and the lantern before him starts to burn out and Louis just _doesn’t have the power or will to physically move_. It’s frightening when everything falls into complete silence as the commotion upstairs fades away. This Louis feels because his ears and his whole head beats like a drummer gone wild and he can hear it all except from what he should be hearing. Death hangs all around him now when he focuses on the slow dripping of water oozing into the cellar and the heavy steps progressing forward until they’re pacing above his head.

When the door in the ceiling is removed again the man doesn’t bother to kick down the ladder. Louis sees his huge form crouching over the opening and hauling a limp Harry up from the floor to drop him helplessly back into the room below. The boy hits the floor with a yelp that rises into a nauseating pitch at the end and his body curls in on itself as the man huffs and closes the door to leave them to themselves.

At this Louis’ body takes back control because before he knows it he’s gripping the lantern and uses the small light left inside to enlighten Harry’s body and his ripped clothes that suck up dirty water from the puddle he’s in. Right now a flashlight would have been everything. In the weak glow the lantern provides he sees flaming marks on Harry’s arms that trail up in a collection of patterns under his shirt and more than likely spreads up all the way to his shoulders and covers his entire back. His skin has been ripped open in various places with thin streams of blood painting him like a canvas and where there aren’t pools of crimson bruises form in addition to the damage caused the young male.

Harry makes an attempt at speech but all Louis is hear is a sort of howl that can sure be heard by dogs and wolves miles away. Louis tries to hush him and lets the lantern drop the final distance until it lands with a scramble on the floor, almost killing the flame within. His own hands shake horribly but he succeeds in placing one on Harry’s side which he can only hope is an unharmed spot and the other one moves up to smooth away his curls from the hot blood on his forehead.

“There’s nothing,” Harry wheezes out while he’s still clutching fruitlessly at his chest to relieve some of the pain coursing through him. Louis doesn’t dare to speak.

“What?”

“Up… _there_ ,” Harry gasps as the pads of Louis’ fingers dip into one of the larger wounds.

“N-nothing?” he doesn’t answer, too busy trying to keep himself from falling apart right then and there.

“The hell did he do to you?” Louis says and moves Harry’s shirt down over his shoulders to reveal the expected bigger and minor injuries littering the body part.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” He doesn’t receive a reply so he tugs the fabric over Harry’s shoulder in a quick movement to hear a hiss from the wounded male. He himself feels like someone has kicked him in the nuts. “It’s, uh, not _that_ bad…”

Harry lets out a ragged breath and a “fuck” as Louis covers up the marks once more.

“We’re gonna die here,” Harry says. Louis helps him up in a sitting position and Harry looks up at him under thick lashes.

“Of course we aren’t,” Louis snorts.

“I can’t walk.” Harry flexes his toes in the restriction his socks bring him.

“You sure? I mean-“

“ _Yes_ ,” Harry cuts him off and so Louis hoists him up to support him on one leg, and with their arms wrapped around each other Louis leads him around the room to test out the boy’s limits.

It goes well the first seven laps. While they limp around Louis hears whimpers getting caught in Harry’s throat every time he rests his weight too much on the wrong leg and build up to a plug blocking off all air trying to make its way down his lungs – so they have to stop and Louis lays him down on the single blanket found in the cellar. He pants, clutching his throat and leg as he does his best to stand on all four, something he can’t do without Louis by his side, holding him up and helping him breathe once again.

“We need to get out,” Louis says.

“ _I can’t walk_ ,” Harry repeats with a small voice and Louis nods, attempting to ease the pain by massaging the area.

“Okay. I- okay. You rest, alright? I’m gonna take care of you.”

Harry doesn’t listen. “He’ll kill us.”

“Ha-“

“No,” Harry sniffles. Louis doesn’t know whether it’s from pain or fear of what’s to happen next. “Either we die in this house, or we die trying to run away. There is absolutely nothing up there Louis. It’s field after field and then there’s a forest stretching around the entire thing. I’m sorry to sound pessimistic but we’re downright fucked.” Louis shakes his head and twists his thumbs the wrong way into Harry’s skin which elicits a groan from the other boy.

“I’m not gonna die here,” Louis mumbles, “and neither are you. This is all just bullshit.”

Harry attempts a chuckle but lands at somewhere between a grunt and a croak.

“Bullshit?”

“Yeah,” Louis says and slumps down next to him to rest against an old dressing table which creaks at the sudden weight, “I mean- just this. Everything. I’m supposed to go shopping with Lottie today and I don’t know.” He wants to speak a sentence or two about how terrible Harry’s skin looks but keeps his mouth shut.

They sit in silence for a moment and all Louis can think about is how they’re going to be trapped in an endless nothingness when the lantern fails them and takes their hope with it. It should be soon if judging by the remains of liquid and candlewick.

“I thought you were gay?” Harry mumbles.

“I, uh, yeah. Lottie’s my little sister.”

“Oh.” Harry sighs and shuffles closer to him so that they’re pressed together in the corner of the room and facing the darkness around them. “Sisters are nice.”

“You have one?”

“Yeah, an older one. She’ll turn twenty-one this year.”

“I have four,” Louis says, doesn’t bother to ask if Harry wants to know or not because they’re stuck and they won’t get out anytime soon, “all younger. There’s Lottie, Fizzy, Phoebe and Daisy.”

“Four,” Harry hums and cuddles into Louis’ shoulder, “’s full house then.”

Louis shrugs. “I guess.” He swallows and stares into the dying light straight ahead of them. “I’m sorry for being a dick.”

This time Harry does manage a chuckle, a sad tiny sound that goes in circles around the cellar. “Yeah. Me too. Good thing we’re dying then?”

“Except that we’re not. You know, we never did try to open that door, and you’ve been up there-“

“Everything is dull,” Harry interrupts and coughs against the bare skin by Louis’ throat. “Like, I didn’t see anything, but there’s a corridor leading away from here – upstairs – and then comes the front door only a few feet away.” He nods to confirm the words. “There are more rooms scattered around but if we sneak past them and out I think we’ll be fine.”

“That is if the door isn’t locked,” Louis says and Harry groans. “How’s your back?”

“Sore,” Harry murmurs and Louis glances down to see the boy’s fingers curl together in a loose fist before falling apart once more. “He, uh.” He shrugs. “There’s stuff up there Louis. Like, I think I saw a line of black sacks up by the wall and he has these…” Harry chokes on his own words and shakes his head. “It smells.”

“Body bags?” Louis says.

“Think so.”

“Really?” Harry snorts and winces when the wounds on his arms are torn open from the slide on the boxes nearby.

“No, no I’m kidding. It’s probably good old soil.” His voice reeks with poison and that with the rest he should be getting now is not a well-matched combo so Louis starts to straighten out the male’s fringe and pull it from his eyes.

“Body bags,” Louis whispers.

A shiver cuts down Harry’s spine.

“We’re not the first, then,” he says and closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see the light disappear from the room and leave them to themselves.

“Well, perhaps we are.” He gazes up at Louis who has his gaze fixated on a spot hidden by the darkness. “He could be digging up graves and collecting limbs from there or whatever.”

“Or it’s just soil.”

“Or that.” Harry hums.

“What do you think he does for a living?”

“I think he’s an asocial serial-killer who abducts children and eats them for breakfast. Honestly – I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it right now.” Harry’s lashes flutter on his shoulder and he shifts closer to the boy for comfort.

“Rather do it in the dark?” Harry whispers as the fire within the lantern flickers and dies out.

“I never want to do it,” Louis mutters and finds his fingers settle into Harry’s palm and find a sense of warmth there. Harry’s only response is to squeeze his hand.

 

Sometime in the vacuum of black they both fall asleep, tangled together into one disfigured human being. At one point in their slumber it starts to rain, water finding its way down under earth to pour into the cellar and the constant dripping yanks Harry from unconsciousness. For the fraction of a second he thinks he’s gone blind, but then realizes where he is and why there isn’t any light around him. He sits muddled into the side of Louis’ snoring figure and their hands somehow still entwine.

He lies there for a while as he tries to embrace what’s happened, that he’ll never come home again or see his friends – even just going out to buy food seems like light-years away where he sits huddled up with Louis in a basement in the middle of nowhere. There is, however, still a faint streak of light from where the door is. If Louis hasn’t woken up before him and checked it to assure them that it’s locked there is a small chance to escape.

Harry removes himself from Louis and shuffles over the floor on his knees with his hands waving in front of his nose to avoid bumping into unpleasant things, his eyes blown open as if he may see any contours if he tries hard enough. His skin crawls more and more the closer he gets to the thin outlines of the glowing square around the door, like he has a thousand spiders mapping out where his knuckles and fingers are and hungry flees wandering around in the forest that is his hair – which he probably has given the condition of the cellar. He scratches his scalp and squeaks when something bites his fingertip. He shakes his head, trying to comb through his curls and yanking them, attempting to stay quiet for Louis’ sake at the same time. It doesn’t help that he can’t even see his hands before him.

As a kid he was always afraid of the dark and could never under any circumstances sleep in a pitch black room; except for when he bounded into his parents’ room in tears and demanded to lie down with them, or else they’d have to banish the shadows in his room and the sly monsters lurking there within. At first he got his will through, but when he grew his mother told him that it was silly to be afraid of something that couldn’t really harm him (and he’d asked about Gemma’s fear of meat and how those things were the exact same, his mother then informing him that she was not afraid, she was a vegetarian.) Having been told that by his mother he tried to get used to sleeping in the black without choking himself underneath the covers, but it wasn’t until he was thirteen that he succeeded.

This dark down here is too chilly and different from what he’s grown familiar with.

Something explodes between his fingers when he squeezed around an oval body sitting in his hair, liquid that could be blood or broken organs coating the majority of the left side of his face. He closes his useless eyes and tries to wipe his face clean while skidding forward on all fours, his leg still throbbing and shooting pain up his thigh when he bumps into something.

He has to glance up at the ceiling though, when he nears where he thinks his destination is. The lines of silver are just above him now, just out of reach if he was able to stand. A shuffle comes from the other side of the room and he spins around in fright in hope to see _anything_ that isn’t the blurriness of boxes and desks but his wishes are ignored. Nothing is to be seen, and it takes more than five minutes for Harry to realize that the sound most came from either Louis or one of the rats in here. With that in mind he pulls himself up with the help of a nearby pile of rotten planks and then onto a table where he can straighten his back and reach out for the door.

Louis wakes to a loud piercing screech and the sound of water splashing together with iciness spreading up his sleeping legs and paralyzing him from the waist down.

“Harry?” he croaks as he blinks in attempt to see what’s in front of him. An agony filled groan responds. Louis crawls over the floor and cursing the lack of motion and heat in his feet and thighs, feeling the ground and puddles of what he prays is water where he goes.

“Hmpf…”

His ears perk up and he turns his head to hear the clear direction of the groans and whimpers.

“Harry?” he repeats and traces his fingers up one of the many armchair legs scattered around.

“Louis,” Harry presses out and the boy freezes to listen. There’s water all around him that’s draining the bit of power he managed to gather in his sleep and he moves away from it, beginning to crawl again. His legs have already started to wake up, so he stands with an atrocious shake of his entire body and stumbles forth. There’s another groan and fingers curl around his ankle. He kicks away and topples over into the water that covers up every piece of floor that there is, earning a yelp from somewhere in front of him.

He sits in silence for a second before there’s an “ouch” and he sighs in relief.

“You there?” Louis says.

“Yeah,” Harry grits. “You kicked my eye.”

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” Louis gushes and feels for the boy who now fights his way up to a sitting position once more, “What the hell were you doing anyway?”

“I was trying to escape,” Harry says as Louis strokes his palm up and down over what he suspects is Harry’s spine. “We discussed yesterday if the door really was locked and I wanted to see if it was so I tried to stand-“

“You fucking idiot,” Louis sighs and traces his palm down to the hollows of Harry’s knees.

“Sorry for trying to stay alive,” Harry scoffs.

“Staying alive,” Louis spits, mostly out of worry and annoyance than anything as he tries to check if Harry is injured, “is not going up there and getting yourself killed by that psycho. That’s called suicide, Styles.”

“Yeah, well, no one’s going up anywhere because the door is locked.”

Louis allows his shoulders to slump in disappointment.

“I think I need to amputate,” Harry says.

“Bullshit, just a little rest and none of this falling and crawling and I promise you that you’ll be just as good as new.”

“Bullshit.”

“Is that even a word?”

“I’m fairly sure that it is, yes.”

“It sounds ridiculous, anyway.”

“Like your name then.”

Louis would send him daggers with his eyes if he could see a damn thing in here, but he can’t, so he settles by pinching what he thinks is Harry’s naked arm, eliciting a small moan from the boy.

“Do you want me to crawl back to the wall?” he threatens.

“Just help me up.”

Louis does, by moving his body into the water and lifting Harry up to lie over his spine with his heartbeat echoing through Louis’ like he is nothing but solely hollow inside. They – Louis – wanders forth across the wet cellar floor at a snail’s pace, partly by not wanting to hit anything or make any unnecessary noise and partly because of the excess weight that Harry brings by being slung around him like a too thick and itchy scarf in the winter. Louis shuffles forward past the trash surrounding them together with the many thousand little insects and mammals waiting to feed on their flesh as soon as they fall asleep, all the while breathing through tight lungs and hearing Harry’s groans and whimpers behind him, acting as an air-assuring backpack for the older boy.

He dumps Harry once more when they reach one of the walls, tracing his palm along the concrete and dropping into Harry’s hair where thick goo drench everything. It sticks to his fingers like still soft glue. He squeaks and plunges down face-first into Harry’s lap in shock, his nose buried into the boy’s thigh, he prays.

“Uh,” Harry coughs while Louis claws his way up with uneasiness bubbling in his gut and putting his nerves on edge alike his mind.

“What.”

“What did you do?”

“You have gunk in your hair, and it sure as hell isn’t wax so excuse me for being startled.”

“And falling onto my crotch.”

Louis scoffs and removes himself from the male with an eye roll. “It was your thigh.”

“I think I know what’s crotch or not, Louis.”

“Congratulations; that almost rhymed.”

“Go me.”

Harry drags his fingers through the unknown mass in his hair and moves into a comfortable position all while trying to place his legs in the one position that won’t hurt him and tear another scream from his throat.

“You know,” he says, doesn’t even bother to glance to his left in search for Louis’ form, “if we ever do go up there I think we’ll be able to just make a run for it.”

“I’m not going to carry you,” Louis voices, like it is their biggest problem at the moment that needs desperate solving. “If I can save my own skin I’m not coming back for you.”

“Of course,” Harry nods with his lip tucked between his teeth. “I’d be surprised otherwise.” He finally glances over at the other boy. “So. As soon as we get a chance, we just run, right? Get out and on with our lives.”

“Okay.” Harry can hear the lump in his throat, dragging back and forth like a bunch of cornflakes stuck there and acting as a lid. “I’ll call for you, though,” Louis adds and Harry’s lip pulls up in a tiny nauseating grin.

“Thanks,” he replies, “but what makes you think that you’d be the first to leave?”

“You can’t walk,” Louis reminds him.

“Yeah, just wait till it’s your turn.” His tongue and entire mouth stings like acid has been poured down his throat after the words leave his lips and he wants to reach out for Louis, grab his shoulder or something. “No, I, that wasn’t fair-“

“We aren’t fair Styles,” Louis whispers. “Nothing is. I didn’t expect any less.”

“Maybe he’ll let us go?” Harry goes for another approach to ease his guilt over the words, grasps his knees and calves and cuddles up next to the armchair beside him. It’s malleable against the back of his filth covered head.

“I have a feeling that the next coming days are going to be filled with maybes.”

“I think you’re right.”

It’s not so much about the fact that they’re stuck in _this_ particular house and cellar, or about exactly where they are – it’s more about how they’re so helplessly stuck and vulnerable down here, exposed to whatever the man decides to bring upon them. Harry’s back and limbs still burn and throb from yesterday’s assault, but he knows that the light provided to them by the lantern wasn’t enough for Louis to see the full damage of his skin, and maybe that was good. Maybe that’s how everything will work out from now on. Hiding and telling half-truths while praying for something that will never come to their aid.

It’s been less than a day and already the maybes flood Harry’s mind.

When the door above opens it’s almost too hushed for either of them to actually catch on to what is happening, but they still snap their heads upwards to watch what’s going on; both with chills spreading through their souls. Nothing happens after that and the only thing Harry can hear is heavy breathing and scraping from the upper floor. A large weathered wooden box drops down into the cellar with a bang and would have nearly scattered into a thousand pieces if it hadn’t been for the steel frame keeping it all together, only a tiny amount of rust decorating it and setting it alight with the bleach light from the opening. Even with that in count the lid flies open, exposing a foul smell that spreads thickly around in the room. It’s trapped and locked in to stay as the door closes with a sharp creak and leaving them once more in the black.

Harry gulps as he pinches his thigh and suppresses the urge to locate the other boy who is hidden somewhere in his surroundings. He scoots over and knocks one of the larger wounds on his tummy straight into the pointed edge of the box, a hand instantly flying to cover it up while he lets out a tiny gasp.

His hand reaches down into the box and swipes around, exploring the contents little by little until his fingers curl around a small familiar object.

“Louis,” he breathes, slides the thing open to feel thin sticks between his fingers tips and rolling them to feel the thicker edge, “I think there are matches in here.”

“You serious?” Louis asks from somewhere to his far right as his voice reaches Harry distantly and with a painful amount of hope in it

“Pretty fucking sure,” Harry says and begins to flick the sticks on the side of the pack with short, quick snaps of his wrists. A weak flame comes to life in his hands, blooming up as he puffs an infinitesimal breath of cool air onto the incarnated warmth to keep it alive and going.

“Christ,” Louis chuckles. Harry feels a tired hand on his shoulder and turns to the other boy who grins at him and then focuses solely on the light between Harry’s fingertips. It traps them both in a comfortable daze, draping them in a non-existent warmth and sense of safety that is exactly what they should not be feeling at this moment. The moment that Louis only a minute or two ruins by whispering, “you have, like, shit in your hair. It’s like you’ve dropped tomato sauce up there-“

“Fuck.” He hands Louis the lit match with great care and rubs his hair to get rid of a quarter of all the dirt while Louis observes him with a tiny smile.

“I don’t think you’ll get rid of it, to be honest,” Louis whispers, “Maybe like organs-“

“Disgusting,” Harry chokes and picks up a second match, lighting it and putting the box into his back pocket with somewhat stiff movements. “Let’s see if there’s a way out of here, shall we?” Louis nods but the corner of his lips still quirks up. There is light again.

“Okay. Walk carefully.” Harry chuckles and hits his arm.

“Arse.”


	3. Part two

It took approximately five hours for them to abandon their searching for a way out; a small flaw in the construction keeping them caged that would give out and send the walls tumbling around them and setting them free. In the middle of the second hour they’d finally discovered that it laid other items in the box that contained the matches and rest things – among those there had been a half bottle of water, a few suspicious looking bits of bread accompanied by two raw potatoes.  _One each then,_ Louis had tried to say with some sort of thankfulness or glee but his tone fell flat and tired.

He hasn’t slept properly since he jumped out of his bed back home on the day they were abducted, which can have been a week or so ago; although he seriously doubts this. To be treated like royalty isn’t something that comes with being kidnapped and it’s not as if he was expecting to have a spotless bathroom and a tub filled with bubbles presented to him, but he can’t say that he expected this rotten basement either with all that comes with it; such as the dead smell constantly filling his train of thought with nothing but distress and an aching pain in his chest, just waiting for something to happen – to die, perhaps; because things can’t stay passive forever, and Louis suspects that his forever is running out rapidly.

“What if…” Harry speaks up again in a drawl after much wait from Louis’ part, his words long and slowly sculptured on his tongue, “what if you had this thing in your brain telling you that it was always Monday?” Louis shifts and switches the alight match to his other hand while studying the other boy in mild curiosity. “Like, say if you were at a party, Friday night, and all your brain kept thinking was  _work, work, Monday, Monday_?”

“I hate these kinds of things,” Louis sighs and rolls his eyes languidly, “give me a choice instead. ‘s easier that way.”

“Easier?” Harry scoffs and blows his curls away from his eyes from pouting lips, “between the devil and the deep blue sea is  _easy_  to you?”

“I said easi _er_ ,” Louis butts in, “now, give me something to think about.”

“How about a phone instead of your dick? And when it starts to ring you’ll just have to reach down-”

“How about no?”

Harry closes his eyes with a sleepy smile and leans back against the wall. “Okay, hang on and I’ll think about it for a sec. Hm, would you rather die from a plane crash or from a train crash?”

Louis hums thoughtfully, scratching his chin gently and glancing around the room as he focuses on the question. “I would… I think I’d go for a train crash actually.”

“Because…?”

“Because dying in a plane crash is possibly one of the worst ways to die of. Having your body spread around in the ocean or a vast field in the middle of nowhere where you’ll lie and rot for eternity.”

“Comfy,” Harry clicks his tongue, “but please do tell about the other horrible ways to die.”

“Are you out to kill yourself?” Louis asks in a breath, “Like, isn’t it enough negativity for you to absorb while we’re stuck down here, but you want to hear possible deaths on top of that?”

“Maybe I’m suicidal, then,” Harry shrugs nonchalantly.

“I doubt it.”

“Then perhaps I’m just enjoying messing with your nerves.”

Louis snorts and furrows his brows, “You aren’t messing with my nerves.”

“I think you better tell me stories about dark times and misery in that case,” Harry nods childishly with his full bottom lip jutting out. Louis gazes hazily into the flame at the end of the small stick that is nearing his fingertips with the heat growing stronger the more time passes.

“Alright. I think the worst way to die would be to drown; go through the ice or something without having anyone around to help you, so you’ll just sink further down into the depths and seeing that thin light seeping down the surface from above but knowing that you can’t fight your way up you continue down, down, down.”

“You’re right; that  _is_  depressing.”

“’Dark times and misery’,” he quotes.

“Hm.”

“Well, what do you think?”

Harry scowls for a second in thought and then snaps his fingers as his brain pops, “I’m going to do the exact opposite to what you just did and go with being burnt to death.”

“Ouch.”

“No, really?” Harry deadpans and shakes his head in mock disappointment. “Just imagine having gasoline poured over you or being tied down, unable to move, and then comes a tiny spark lighting you up like a Christmas tree, and all you can do is wait until it kills you or until your skin melts off.”

“It’s some pretty intense heat.”

“You could say that.” Louis peeks up at the door worryingly when he hears heavy footsteps pacing up there once more, almost angry sounding or reeking of impatience; though for what he’s clueless about.

“He’s been walking around for like an hour,” he states softly, “what do you think he’s doing?” They’ve also taken notice to the occasional bangs and thuds echoing from different rooms on the upper floor; something they’ve tried to ignore by talking with hushed voices in case the man decides to remember their existence and pick them up for some fun.

“Preparing dinner?” Harry suggests, “Or- I don’t know. Maybe he just  _really_  enjoys preparing dinner. With two boys on the menu and all he-“

“No,” Louis croaks and nearly lets the match fall from his slack fingertips to incinerate them.

“Sorry,” Harry immediately apologizes, wide-eyed and studying Louis’ profile thoroughly. “You reckon we should save our light or use it all up now?”

Louis exhales tiredly, hinting that Harry is the most idiotic human being in England, “What kind of question is that even?”

“Save them,” Harry replies for him, “I have more choices if you-“

He falls quiet in the fraction of a second and goes completely still, Louis frowning and he opens his mouth to speak only for Harry to shush him quickly. It’s no longer fleeting down the sound of pacing from above, but instead there’s a total silence excluding the soft smooth tones from piano keys skipping through the rooms up there, accompanied by what can only be a French choir. It would be incredibly soothing and relaxing hadn’t they been trapped underground where the growing plants on the wall are starting to bloom and come to life with horrid insects crawling and nipping on their earlobes. Louis’ hand has found its way to curl around the fabric of Harry’s dirty tee as they both hold their breaths in weighty anticipation.

The classical melodies continue to plink and plonk upstairs and Louis allows his chin to drop and rest against his chest with a long exhale that drags out like a summer breeze.

“Did you expect metal?” Harry asks gravely.

“A bit,” Louis admits and follows the fire in his hands intently. “But, doesn’t this seem more appropriate? The gigantic villain that rapes children and eats with five hundred different forks and spoons but still hasn’t acquired the right manners?”

“I think you’ve got a point.”

“Well of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t have spoken.” He waits for Harry to retort but there is a noticeable lack of replies.

“ _Rape_ though?” Harry’s voice is just barely vibrating but it’s still enough for Louis to pick up on. He places a tentative hand on Harry’s shoulder and ducks his head to meet the green eyes that glimmer ever so little in the dark.

“That’s your worst fear?” he wonders with a voice as soft as he can make it. Harry shrugs his shoulders a little and avoids his gaze, confirming it wordlessly.

“Cannibalism is pretty awful too,” he says silently. Louis nudges his head a bit so that they can finally look at each other properly, even that with caution. “Louis.”

“Mhm?”

“I’m- like, I need to…”

“Yes?”

Harry coughs and his gaze flickers for a second. “I need to pee.”

“Oh,” says Louis. He scratches his head a bit. “Good for you?”

“No, I mean.” Harry seems to have a word-block in his throat. “ _Where_?”

And, “oh,” because where  _does_ one pee in a cellar shrouded in shadows? “Is there something resembling a bucket or similar to that?” Harry fights his way up to stand on his knees and with a palm pressed flat to the floor.

“Let’s have a look,” he says, lights another match with slight complexity and starts to move around with jerky movements. Louis wished that he could ease his pain somehow so that he can at least handle himself without needing to crawl everywhere. He gets up himself and walks carefully with a hand cupping the match to not let his motions forward put out the light that still burns strongly.

“Why don’t we just light the lantern?” he questions after a minute or two in stillness.

“Because,” Harry speaks as he attempts to stand on his knees, “that oil stuff is gone I think, but you’re very welcome to try.” Louis nibbles on his lips as he fumbles for the object, opening the small glass door and sticking in his match to make it catch fire.

“C’mon,” he mutters when it’s burnt out, hastily lighting a second one to fuel the small amount of the oil still left, surrounding the candlewick. It lights with a hissing noise, bites his fingers belligerently which nearly causes him to drop the lantern.

“You okay?” he hears Harry’s voice from somewhere in the far right corner and he breathes an “ah-ha” and slams the glass shut to guide himself over to the other boy. Louis soon spots him among boxes and mould, in the midst of relieving his needs in a steel bucket.

“Can’t a man have his privacy?” the taller mumbles. Louis smiles feebly.

“You’re not a man,” he says. He turns around anyway.

“More than you are,” Harry decides to press and Louis hears the rustle indicating that Harry is now dressed once more.

“I’m older.”

“Yeah, and that helps.”

There is a bang from where the door is and a whispered “shit” from Harry, pointing to the fact the he most definitely painted the wall in a lovely shade of urine.

“That you?” he asks and bumps into Louis’ shoulder. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s from- it’s the door.”

Louis slowly places the lantern on the floor behind a bunch of extra vases; all with a sort of green substance on them that he has no intention of knowing the touch or feel of on his skin. The door opens languidly with a rasp and the raw scrape of metal on metal to let the unfamiliar light from the hallway up there shoot in like bullets. The man reveals his contour with a hard cough in the dust filled air, waving with his hand to clear his lungs and atmosphere to breathe. The ladder rolls down to hit the cellar floor without a sound followed by the man’s heavy steps as he eases himself down onto the bottom floor. He claps his hands together with another cough and stares at them expectantly, classical music playing above still.

“Come on then,” the man ushers them, gestures largely to the ladder. Louis bumps shoulders with Harry in distress until the man yanks him forth by his wounded wrists and he lets out a small cry in pain where he falls into the wooden planks. Harry opens his mouth but reluctantly settles for biting his lip when he sees the other boy’s skin resuming its bleeding from not all too long ago. The man sighs impatiently and kicks Louis’ shin to make him climb – something he does in complete silence and tiny, tiny groans – and then makes a sharp, well powered grab for Harry’s forearm before pushing him up behind the shorter male to leave the cellar.

The corridor and multiple doors haven’t changed since the last time he was up here; dull lifeless walls and ceiling closing them in while only pressing them forward to the hallway which is as far as he’s explored the house that are at least another floor if he takes the staircase spiralling there in count. Louis staggers away through the corridor uncertainly, massaging the bloody tears in his skin; the blood that is staining the front of his clothes and painting long bracelets that spins around his flesh in circles. The man shoves past them hurriedly but somehow manages to snatch them both by their collar as he moves through the building, under the winding staircase with several books and disturbing titles none of them have time to read or even skim through as they are being tossed into one of the room furthest away from the basement and corridor leading there, both boys falling head-first into a bed standing there.

As Harry hears Louis cough and splutter into the sheets and fall to the floor he grips the mattress to hold himself still, gazing up on the walls to feel his heart stop beating. They’re completely covered in black and white photographs displaying different motives that he at first cannot draw a red line between. One of the pictures captures his attention among all else; it sits slightly above his head right in front of him to the right of the only window in there – having the edges of it jagged from time and blackened from what might be fire. It shows a faceless person, perhaps a doll judging by her slender curves, sitting cut open in front of a fireplace with coal all around her body and up on her bare pale knees, her organs falling out of her chest to mix with the dirt. Her wrists are tied tightly with rope, and if he looks closer he can see that she hangs from the ceiling.

Before he has the time to throw up from the horror bubbling in his gut his own wrists are drawn behind his back and over his head, causing him to slide down to hang with his knees an inch or two above the ground. His breathing is cut short when the man takes a fistful of his curls growing from around his neck, tilting his head forth to stare at the brown stained bed while feeling rope snake around his pushed together hands and tie them together. His eyes are wide and lips parted in an attempt to gather air in his lungs which is an impossible task when his chin is pressing against his throat as if is now. He can sense Louis beside him although the boy is nowhere to be seen. It’s probably a thing that will only grow the more time they spend together in the cellar, he guesses. He just doesn’t know if it’s good or bad.

The only living sign he receives from the man after he’s been let go is the grunts and smell oozing from him as he moves Louis to have his forehead against the bed, staring at Harry with eyes the size of the moon, glazed and shining in the light tearing through the window. Harry glances at the boy’s wrists where the wounds are ruthlessly ripped open as the rope rubs against them, the colour of wine trickling down his arms to drip on the floor once again. He wants to reach out a hand, tell Louis that it’s fine and soothe him because apart from the man’s grunts and heavy breaths the only sound is the cut-off whimpers falling from Louis’ lips, welling out between the set of teeth that are clamped down on his bottom lip. Harry’s back hurts where he leans now against the pointed frame of the bed, just nudging his own scars and bruises littering his skin but still adding undesired friction that makes him squirm.

French is still coming from the far end of this floor, clearer voices joining together while slow steady violins are playing to create a melody Harry is sure he will never forget without therapy.

There are gigantic hooks in the ceiling on which their ropes are pulled over, putting their bodies several feet above the floor and the tips of their fingertips grazing the ceiling with erratic movements, veins twitching as all blood slowly but surely abandons their arms to venture down. Harry gulps while watching the man take a step back and observe them incredulously, a hand cupping his chin in thought. He walks up and pokes Harry’s chest, causing the boy to swing back and forth and hissing under his breath in the hot pain from where he’s hanging slightly leaning forward. The man does something that resembles a dissatisfied shrug and then leaves the room; his heavy steps creating distance between him and the boys.

“Harry,” Louis mumbles from his left. He wants to speak but his throat became useless the second he saw the photographs all around them, caging them with sheer fear.

“Harry,” Louis speaks again but his voice dies abruptly once the man re-enters with what can only be described as enormous blocks of concrete with bits of rope dangling from where they’re stuck in the middle gathered in his thick arms. He lets them drop to the floor with a bang that rings out through the entire house, then crouches in front of Louis’ and squeezes his calf. Louis’ breath hitches and he seeks out Harry’s gaze for some sort of support; something Harry can’t quite give him.

The man keeps his gaze forcefully trained on Louis’ legs as his hands run across the floor to grip one of the blocks by the rope, dragging it over the wood to put them up in his lap with a fat puff of air, tying them around Louis’ ankles at a minimum of five laps around before he’s happy enough to sit back and observe the boy. Louis shakes his head frantically when the man scrunches his nose and lifts the block from his lap, letting it drop to pull Louis’ body down towards the floor – stretching him out lengthwise. The boy shrieks and squeezes his eyes shut at the pressure drawing his feet down while he’s stuck hanging by his bloody wrists, the blood now running down his body to gather round up in his hair or continue down to stain to floorboards.

Harry’s eyes widen in realization as the man slides over to do the same to his own ankles, immediately beginning to kick his legs automatically in horror. His right foot hits the man square in the face and there is almost a cracking sound coming from his nose that puts a certain dead kind of silence to the room. The larger male falls back onto the floor in shock and Harry’s hope of him not ever getting up from there burns fiercely in his chest, radiating from his being. When the man regains control over his limbs once more he doesn’t return to the block and rope directly, but stands to raise a fist towards Harry who closes his eyes as if it will help avoid the hit he is about to receive. The thing is that it never comes. Instead he feels calloused fingers pinch the sore skin on his wrists – eliciting a pitiful gasp from the boy – and then his whole body is being twisted around a hundred and eighty degrees. He stares up into the ceiling and lets out a scream that is completely silent in his ears.  _His arms are being parted from his shoulders_.

Once the man lets go he unwinds and spins around like a hurricane, the weight hanging from his ankles unbearable where they bruise him and constant incoherent sounds bubbling from his bitten lips. When he stops the man has left the room – closed the door, even – and he sees Louis watching the floor with a blank expression. Harry can just about hear the tearing of the boy’s wrists as the rope dig into his bone.

“L-Louis?” he whispers. Said male turns his gaze upwards to meet Harry’s, Louis’ eyes filled with tears. Harry is fairly sure that he’s crying himself.

“I think- think our shoulders are gonna pop,” he stutters, his entire jaw jumping up and down, “if we hang h-here long enough, surely they’ll- they’ll dislocate o-or-“ He shakes and Harry can’t help but trail his gaze down Louis’ vibrating body to where the chunk of concrete is moving in small circles. Harry swallows and tries not to focus on his own weight.

“H-how is your back?” Louis asks when he does nothing to respond.

“Okay,” he mumbles, that pain nearly forgotten until Louis mentions it, causing the wounds to start throbbing again and for pain to bloom out over his spine and up his arms, “how is, uh…” He trails off guiltily and prays that Louis didn’t catch onto his words.

“My wrists?” Louis wonders, hissing shrilly as the material seems to cut further into him. “C-could be worse, right?” Harry doesn’t understand how he doesn’t break down, but then he once again notices the tears fighting to stay in but boiling over to run down his cheeks.

Louis gasps sharply and as Harry glances over his head is contorted and facing the floor, body shuddering as he tries to gather enough power to hold himself up and to secure the future in which his shoulders are stuck to his torso and well-functioning.

“Just hold on,” the younger boy mutters while trying to block the pain out himself, “a little while longer, okay?” His body is slowly but surely giving up on him. A little while.

“I think-“ Louis doesn’t get the time to finish that sentence. Harry hears the cracking sound and shuts his eyes as the raw scream rips from Louis’ throat. He can still feel the boy beside him, dangling back and forth in despair with one or both of his shoulders loose from their original position, and it is a different kind of hurt than the physical one that gnaws inside of the taller male where he hangs helpless and listens without the ability to do anything.

Quick steps are echoing in the corridors leading up to the photo peppered bedroom and the man kicks the door open with irate purple veins bulging out of his pale forehead like bridges over a frozen lake.

“What’s with the noise?” he growls with wide eyes snapping from Harry to Louis and back around, and he has barely spoken a full sentence before now so this is the first time that Harry can hear his voice clear and proper. Raucous and stentorian is what it is, and when it isn’t that it’s either tight or an open void for them to tumble into. The man’s eyes are consumed by his pupils that seem to be pulsating where they fill up the white that should be but is now down to a non-existent minimum. Harry can only suspect drugs as the guilty one.

He allows himself one glance to spot Louis’ red face and his mouth that is still open without letting out any kind of noise beside the mute screeches, his eyes studying the floor as tears drip down.

“Jesus,” the man groans and the light from the window catches on the bloody blade in his hands. Harry shrieks as the knife flies towards his wrists but fails to feel the cuts forming on his skin, instead thumping against the floor and hitting his chin and head to fall into unconsciousness.

Louis hears the thud but doesn’t dare to move his gaze away from the gradually growing wetness on the wood below. He sees Harry’s matted curls in the corner of his eye and the man is crowding all space in front of him with his black aura shouting disappointment and disdain and his teeth almost shimmering in the mid-day glow. Louis watches him stand and chop off the ropes holding him up and he too falls to the floor. He faces the seemingly seeping boy next to him and squeezes his wrists in between his thighs, holding in his screams as the man crouches beside him.

“Why,” he sighs in frustration and taps the tip of the blade against Louis’ cheek, blood painting the boy and trickling down onto his tongue, “can’t you be nice and quiet like good little boys, huh? Always have to make a fuzz. Fuckers.”

Louis’ shoulder is dislocated, more than likely, he has an unconscious boy next to him, the whole house smells of corpses and gasoline, and he has a knife beginning to punctuate his skin. His life could be better.

The man picks them up like half sacks of powder, tossing them over one shoulder each and snarls when Louis whimpers. The boy stares in mortification at Harry’s pale face and the crimson shades from the wound on his head created by his earlier unexpected fall; his eyelids that are closed so lightly they may be opened by the slightest puff of air and he looks freakishly peaceful where he bounces with each step that the man takes aggressively towards the cellar with alarming determination and finality.

Panic takes Louis by his ankle and zooms up into his spine like a series of stabs, paralyzing him completely at the thought of going back into the dark with lifeless company and a fucked arm and the air down there is too thick, too toxic, too sultry, and he can’t breathe in the dark and he can’t do  _anything_  and he wants to go home so fucking badly and away from all this shit.

As they pass the kitchen the dead stench worsens, and he is sure he will throw up before he remembers that his stomach is a contracted empty space at the moment. On the sink there are piles of meat forming like mountains in a ski resort with lifts going up and down – or like volcanoes with the fresh blood oozing out and running down over hill after hill. Meat clump after meat clump is stocked alike bricks building an igloo together, filling up the major part of all surfaces in the kitchen. Louis’ head falls back down onto the man’s firm chest in exhaustion and blinks away the dryness of his burning eyes, spotting the bloody knife in the man’s belt and he feels like now would be a good time for all puzzle pieces to come together into a full imagine in his head; but they stay – persistently dividing themselves further and further until they’re all mere fragments in his mind – and he can’t fucking figure it out.

He wonders what Harry would say if he was awake to make sense and if they’d be safe from the man’s hawk eyes and eagle beak snapping after them like he’s chasing his every-day worms. Thinks about what his mother would tell him about looking out for strangers and seeking arguments and fights where none should be necessary, and how she would cock her head to the right and study him disappointedly and he would crawl right back into her arms, crying and pleading for forgiveness. He wants to speak with his friends; ask Liam about silly math questions only he can answer or take him out to the arena to see a good game of football; or pat Eleanor on the shoulder and hear all about her grandmother’s dog and the process the little creature is making in the hospital after being hit by a car. He wants to tuck his sisters in for sleep when they come begging for him to sing them a lullaby even though they’re growing out of their pure child-state, and he wants to cradle them all together in his arms and kiss their foreheads and listen for hours about their days as they babble on and on an braids his growing hair and ply with his fingers and pokes his nose.

Louis wonders what he would tell them when they ask “And what have you been up to lately?” If he would brush it off and start a new topic about economics, or perhaps reply with a shrugged “Oh, the usual” and reflexively rub his arm for unneeded comfort which he can’t get from anyone else.

Most of all he wants to run. Wants to pick up one of the armchairs in the living room and crush the window with it, jump out into the flourishing grass and go for it – chase after his craved freedom. He wants to be able to turn back and look at Harry with a crazed laugh and say “ _We did it_ ” and actually feel that he’s alive and that it’s not some fucked up picture his mind has set up to trick him. To see that it is actually real and that they can go home.

Once the man has deposited them in the basement and locked the door five times Louis is curling up in a ball next to Harry’s sleeping form, clutching his hand in the dark and seeking warmth that the black refuses to give him. Chills are creeping atop his arms and down the moist walls with exactly planned steps, a carefully thought-out tactic. Louis rests his head in between Harry’s bruised shoulder blades and sobs, nails cutting into his skin to refocus all the pain running through him in various paths and directions as his heart slices his chest open with its fervent beats.

He needs Harry to wake up.

Louis attempts to rouse the boy into the world of the living by moving the taller’s body back and forth so that he’s rolling slowly across the damp mouldy floor, until Louis is rocking him like a little child begging for his parents to wake so that he can crawl into their bed after a night filled with horrid dreams. It doesn’t exactly help that he can’t see anything – the safe glow from the lantern gone and the box of matches lost in the black – and his tears only keep coming like he has decided to become the Niagara Falls which not something that he’s especially fond over at the very moment.

Bereft of words he does his absolute best to talk, squeezes out single incoherent syllables that form endless strung together words that not even he can comprehend – all while shaking the boy with a powerless arm. Louis feels the searing stickiness among Harry’s curls where the smaller boy’s fingertips dance gently over Harry’s skull and strokes away the bloody strands of hair already clumping together like a bunch of rugby players all going after the ball. He escapes from the basement for a while in his thoughts, envisioning another reality, an alternate universe where alcohol is illegal to possess and even touch; a world where there are no alleyways with suspicious looking trash strewn about and where darkness is but a myth.

Once realizing that Harry is going to be out for a long time his thoughts drift to an unfamiliar place in which a grand table with an ivory tablecloth draped over it stands; tumblers and various beverages filling up the excess space where there aren’t silver plates being served. At the far end of the table sits Louis tied to a chair, eying the phenomena rising before his eyes as the domed lids on the silver plates vanish to reveal a feast that sees no equals among banquets in castles or city halls. Each plate displays a different limb; closest to him are the smaller ones such as toes and fingers gathered to form a hand without its palm. Then comes the bigger ones, all building up to the final dish. After the millions of thighs and arms there comes a stack of heads – hair blooming out from the top and snaking down to the tabletop where they stared at him with dead eyes and cut up faces that beamed frostily. All people he knows. He can see the unmistakable quirk of Phoebe’s mouth, the eyebrows of Liam, his mother’s cheekbones and her ears he used to play with as a child, and all he knows is that he’s got to get away from here.

Louis snaps back to reality with a gasp and barely manages to untangle himself from Harry’s body before he’s throwing up, casting vomit all over him and the floor and all surrounding furniture. He cries through it, and without having the strength to hold his weight up with one arm he collapses into the puddle that is only growing larger and larger by the second with liquids spilling from his mouth.

Thankful for the darkness he shuffles away in exhaustion from his puke and sniffles with a face covered in things he won’t acknowledge. He ends up resting his head against the wall and searching tiredly for Harry in the black, all while thinking about the meat in the kitchen and the smell that is permanently stuck inside his nostrils like tiny tattoos. The growling that his stomach utters echoes in the cellar, and he tries not to think about the time when he will have to choose between starving and eating whatever is up there.

 

Raw cries piercing through the ebony atmosphere is what rouses Louis eventually. He has slept a restless slumber with a conscious haunted by death and misfortune that chases him down various squiggling paths with dead ends. That he would have cried in his sleep wouldn’t have surprised him, so when he rubs his eyes clean of exhaustion he feels the drained lines where his tears have run to freeze upon his icy skin alike minor glaciers and tries not to think about the exceeding warmth glowing in his shoulder. It’s like his body is tucked inside a radiator with no chance to escape; as is the walls themselves are trapping him like a mouse and squeezing the life out of him.

Harry is curling against him in his sleep, gripping dependently after Louis’ clothes and skin with lumps of air crashing from his mouth onto the floor while sweat makes a new layer atop his pale complexion. Louis lets him sleep. Not to be cruel and let the kid re-live his nightly terrors over and over, but to make sure that he gets the rest he needs to make it through the day without collapsing – nightmares or not.

Louis sits with his leg straight and flat on the floor for Harry to hold onto through his frightening rollercoaster ride and blinks in slow-motion whenever his eyeballs seem to collect too much dirt and insect corpses for it to be physically impossible to move his gaze without hearing the inevitable crunching sound. It probably isn’t insects to be fair, but at this point in his life he wouldn’t be surprised anymore.

It takes a moment to realize that there are still heart-shredding cries cutting in from the floor above, and as he analyzes them he comes to the settlement that those are most likely a baby’s cry for help.

His eyes widen in the dark and he kicks Harry’s head in the violent jerk his body makes to get up on his feet and tripping over to the spot underneath the door, closing his eyes as to focus his hearing even more.

There comes a gasp from the floor in front of him and he can vaguely see Harry sit up with gigantic, startled eyes staring at the shorter boy. The vibe the curly hair male scatters around him are full of horror and relief and he breathes a groan when moving to stand on his knees and twist his foot right. It’s still throbbing with pain, and though he can’t figure why it’s for the best to leave it be and not mess with his body’s way of healing. After all – it’s his body, and why does he have it if not for aid in these kinds of situations?

“W-where is the… Louis…?” he mumbles and crawls forth, Louis helping him up by a hand on the younger’s hip.

“I-I don’t know,” Louis admits silently and they watch each other as the squeals and shouts get louder and louder but not any closer to the cellar.

“That doesn’t sound… quite natural?”

“Do you think he has a kid?”

Harry smiles icily and cocks his head where he’s clenching his fist around Louis’ okay shoulder to hold himself up and blatantly ignoring his foot.

“I doubt it, but nothing is impossible, right?”

Louis shrugs a bit and flinches when the baby’s throat is blocked by something suspected to be vomit, and then starts up all over again with a little hitch in its voice.

“Boy or girl?” Louis asks quickly, breaking the silence at his words and bites his lip to quiet them down again.

“Seriously now,” Harry coughs, “I mean obviously he’s gotta have  _someone’s_  kid up there, but I highly disagree to the fact that he would be the father. I don’t know about you but I would think twice before getting involved with someone like him.”

“You don’t-“ Louis rolls his eyes and removes Harry’s death grip to instead support the boy with two steady hands. “What if he’s a nice guy?” Before Harry protests Louis continues by cutting off the other male’s voice with a hand to his mouth. “I  _mean_ ; what if he’s not psychotic outside this house? What if he has, like, a wife? Or a whole litter of children that craves their father’s attention to not fall apart and have a seizure or something? What if he has hobbies in his free time when he’s not supporting his family? What if he has loving best friends? What if, Harry?”

The boy gapes a moment and slaps Louis’ hand away from his skin, letting the right hand stay for now. “But that wouldn’t change anything,” Harry whispers in shock at the previous words, “I don’t care about  _his_  family, or  _his_  artificial behaviour, and the only hobby he has is to kidnap boys and do God knows what with them; all for the simple sake of  _pleasing himself_.” His eyes are glistering with what can’t be anything other than tears. “Louis, I don’t know in what circles you’re thinking, or what the fuck your train of thought is, but trust me when I say that his desires and whatever the heck he’s up to is none of our business. And I don’t want to be down here for the rest of my days either just for the point of living. I want to go home and meet my mum and sister. I want to graduate. I want to travel to America. I want to try drugs and do stupid things. I want to get my own house someday, Louis. But I can’t do that if I’m going to constantly wonder whether this man has even a fragment of humanity inside him like we do.”

All the while he spoke he has had his eyes fixated upwards at the streak of dim sunshine breaking through the door, his tears sinking back into his skin and a hand reaching up in hope of feeling a little warmth graze his skin.

“It’s open,” he says quietly.

Louis swallows thickly and follows Harry’s pointing finger to note that it is indeed flowing light through a minimal crack indicating the lock sitting loose on its hinges with a fine layer of rust and yellow paint coating it like frosting.

“This it?” Louis wonders.

Harry glances away from their freedom for a second to give Louis a firm and hopeful look.

“We might as well fucking try.”

Louis watches him with a wild glint in his eyes and adrenaline beginning to rush up his throat.

“Can you stand on my shoulders?” Harry inquires.

“Can’t we just move furniture? Your foot is still, well, fucked.”

Harry shakes his head and throws an eye upwards again to feed from the light. “It’ll make too much noise.” Baby screeches are still vibrating the walls up there and carrying echoes of sorrow down to their location, the same hitch from after vomiting sounding loud and clear.

“But how are you getting up there then? It’s not like I can  _pull_  you up, you know?”

“Well there’s the ladder, right?” Harry questions with wide hand gestures swiping in lines between them.

As they peek up through the crack there is no evidence of the folded ladder in the glimpses of light beaming down at them; only the brown hangars and third layer of a different shade of brown paint beginning to peel off and curls down towards the in small roses.

They let the black silence consume them entirely for a moment and drag them down into the depths of earth to almost reach the gates of hell, and then Louis’ brain kicks him and shoots his chin up to face the door hanging ajar.

“I could…” He trails off and gulps down what feels like years of pent-up stuffy air. “I could climb up and see if I find anything to help you with.”

“What?” Harry hisses, emitting the snake-vibe on an amazing level that prods at Louis’ bone a little bit. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Well what else are we going to do? If you try to stand on my shoulders we’ll surely make more noise when falling than what we will make if we move furniture, so I don’t see how this can be a bad idea really.”

“Not? You  _don’t_  see how this is bad? He’s up there Louis. He’s up there and ready to behead you as soon as he catches a glimpse of you, or slice you up and feed you to the birds. If you can’t see how fucked that is-“

“We can be free,” Louis says and lets his hand squeeze Harry’s skin a little tighter at the thought. “Put an end to this and go home. But we can’t do that if we’re going to be stuck down here like two rats in a cage. So no, excuse me for failing to realize the lack of pillars holding up my plan.”

Harry stares at him with his wide vomit eyes, body tensing and relaxing in waves hitting him. As he thinks about up there his fingers start to jolt a bit, his lungs begin to long for the taste of fresh air alike his eyes that seem to feel the light breeze hitting him, and his ears can determine where the sound of traffic floats from, if not all around him.

“That’s not a plan,” he mumbles, “It’s not incredibly wise to go up there in search for freedom and then find yourself killed by that psycho. We’ll figure out another way.”

Louis’ lips quirk up sourly at hearing his own words twisted to fit Harry’s tongue.

“And risk him tiring of sitting around with his thoughts and come kill us? No thank you Harry. I’d rather live to see tomorrow. Now let me get up on your shoulders.”

“No,” Harry says firmly and allows his voice to raise the tiniest of bits to make Louis understand that he’s serious.

“It’s not the right time to be stubborn. Help me up.”

Just as Louis starts to move away for a jump up on Harry’s back the younger boy shuffles away quickly into the arctic shadows of cellar and shakes his head.

“Think about it,” Louis pleads, his hand reaching out to drag Harry back into the area of light so that they may speak properly and in the silence wrapped around them that functions as a wall for their words to hit in the dark. Harry stands too far away for him to touch, running through alleys in his own mind and trying to come up with something clever to get them both out safely. And alive.

Louis continues. “You said it yourself. If we’re going to spend the rest of our lives down here in the mould then I would like to die knowing that I had at least  _tried_  to escape my doom. If you don’t want to join me then that’s fine; but either way I’m leaving. Whether it’s with your help or without it.”

The curly haired boy still regards him doubtfully with eyes begging for him to change his mind so that he won’t be alone down here with a corpse as companion, but Louis only radiates determination and sadness where he stands with vague sunshine colouring his hair into lighter shades of what it once was. It sets off a spark somewhere; something that makes Harry move forth and crouch in front of the boy and wait for a reaction.

“Well, hop on,” he ushers lowly and ignores the pain it will plant in his bruises, “Let’s now hope that I can stand on one leg while you climb.”

Louis smiles coyly and sighs heavily to let his fear float away in the inside night tearing at their flesh and senses. Harry keeps steady as the shorter boy tentatively places his knees on Harry’s back, feeling the body underneath him and determining what the best way to go is before he kicks off the basement floor and settles in instability. Harry huffs a groan and bends forward even further, and when his nose is about to touch a bizarre lump of green gunk on the floor Louis creeps up his spine to get ready.

“Alright, you can stand,” he murmurs.

The larger male scoffs and bites back a growl in his voice. “I’m  _trying_ ,” he says, “Hold on now.”

When Harry stands Louis moves up, holding his curls in an iron grip which causes hisses and protests to pour from Harry’s lips, but they both quiet down when Louis is burying his nails in the wooden door and steadying himself on Harry’s shoulders. Hands trail up to his calves to hold him firmly when he peeks through the narrow crack to try to distinguish anything in the corridor. Louis’ sight deteriorates as the day attacks him, and he has to squint to see the blurry lines that creates walls and ceiling and together resembles an elongated room.

Down in the cellar Harry is breathing the frigid air over and over, feeling his leg shake at the task of keeping Louis up and steady while the elder scans the area in front and deems it fit for exploring. With each day passing the air in the cellar has gone around a millions times and shifting to a less oxygen friendly one with a sense of contaminant strings going with the torrent flowing into their lungs. It’s like someone stopped by while they were sleeping and emptied all sorts of trash in here, taken from the restrictions England brings to go worldwide, around and around. But that’s just ridiculous, because aside from the man upstairs there has been no one dropping in here for whatever business they were planning to execute.

“Coast is clear,” he hears Louis mumble and moves away the gaping lock to push away the piece of wood.  _Quiet as a mouse._

“What about the second guy?” Harry suddenly pipes up from below. Louis throws a puzzled glance at him and begins to ease himself with miniscule whimpers and groans slipping out at the strain the mission puts on his dislocated shoulder but manages to stay surprisingly silent during this period.

“What ‘second’ guy Harry?” he whispers.

“You know when we were in the alley?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” he moistens his lips, “there were two guys there. One carrying you and one carrying me.”

“Oh shit,” Louis croaks, a hand instantly covering his mouth and preventing further noise from popping out.

“Do you think he’s here as well?” Harry wonders, scratching away the itch when seeing Louis disappear for a moment and then peek back down into the hole. Harry shakes his abrasive hair out and searches Louis’ expression for any new sign of fear or distress, if not both.

“I hope to God not,” Louis prays, then sends a look downwards to inform Harry that he’s leaving to search for a ladder of some sort.

The baby cries are hitching more and more now and get a metallic clang to them the closer Louis moves along the corridor to the closed door on bare feet that are drenched in the liquid from below where Harry is now using his every bit of self-control to stay put and not pace. In time with each step Louis takes the fear of being noticed rises within him until he’s drowning in it – only holding onto his insides which are being set fire to by bile moving around.

All falls silent gradually. It’s like the LP responsible for creating all symphonies in the world has snapped in two and now the needle is cutting through air instead of the plastic standard material. As this happens all noise in the house wanes until there is the irregular drumming of Louis’ heart against his ribs, entreating to free itself from the confinements of his embodied soul. It sort of thumps in there, much like he remembers the old neighbour’s dog doing as she threw herself on the outer wall of his room and spat on the window at night, only wanting to get him out of there so that they could play like boy and dog should do. Though all he ever felt was fear.

Laughter comes in waves from the TV like in those American sitcoms and he hears shuffle from what can only be assumed as a perished armchair, sending his nerves into a fit and nearly making him trip forth down the corridor. If he remembers correctly the living room should be straight to the left once he exits the door in front of him, then a staircase spiralling up on the wall to a second floor which he has absolutely no desire to explore for as long as he still has some sense left.

There is a single window up to his right from where he currently is crouched deep, and is the source of every squeeze of sunshine departing from behind the great wall of clouds. Swallowing and standing up his breath is torn away from him harshly. Even though the landscape is grey it’s a mix of gorgeous and horrid. There are desolated fields stretching across the Earth’s crust with a sideways arch of trees blocking the rest of his vision by the horizon, much like Harry said, and with the dome of greyness above made the outside seem dead. Other than that there is absolutely nothing else. Just as the sun is taken by the clouds once more Louis remembers the task at hand, inhales sharply, then treads silently over the floorboards.

The living room lies in that way where he will have to fully exit corridor to catch a single glimpse, and he’ll be damned if the group of seats in there aren’t facing right out in the great hallway amidst the rooms he’s been in. Still, besides the raspy baby cry hitting the walls again, there isn’t any excess sound from the TV which has now fallen into silence, and he can’t hear anyone moving in there, so perhaps he will be fine if he’s stealthy. The only thing he hears is creaking upstairs, and there are dusty bits of wooden pieces falling into his hair and eyes as he gazes up, trying to see through the cracks in the ceiling. When everything stills for a second time he moves.

Harry has relented to pacing. Around and around in the tiny circle where light previous flowed, and all the time he keeps his ears sharpened and eyes through the open door. He’s not sure whether Louis will really come back or not, given their earlier conversations, but he likes to keep his faith in something and this something just happens to be a skinny, injured nineteen year old who’s hopefully returning right this moment with some type of ladder for him to use as escape route.

“Get up and run, right?” he mumbles to himself when his feet start to burn from the scraping against the floor that tears his skin away. No matter how light on his feet Louis thinks he is, Harry can still hear him stomp along the corridor back to him, revealing his big eyes filled with terror and the ladder in his tight grasp that might as well belong back in the 1600’s. It’s carefully lowered down to him, and he guides it down safely with his bloody hands that slip along the wood but somehow manages to stay above the ground until he can let it settle without a sound. Louis breathes raggedly above when he begins to climb, greeting him with a tame smile and his healthy hand grabbing one of his own to try to hoist him up. Their every move is executed with great caution, and soon they’re both creeping along the corridor, eventually reaching the now open door that waits for them with finality.

“You came back,” Harry has to whisper, the sentence hitting Louis’ ear softly and making him still for a second. Louis continues to peek through the gape between the door and the somewhat lavender shaded wall, and whether it is to pointedly ignore him or simply keep his focus sharp he has no idea of.

“He should be upstairs if he hasn’t moved,” Louis mutters and Harry glances down to see their hands brush before Louis gently pushes the door open enough for them both to sneak out.  _He should be._

There is a door right in front of them, just nine or ten feet away, and it looks suspiciously enough like a front door would appear to be displayed. All that’s between is the abundance of smoke wafting in thick strokes through the air like brushstrokes, sticking to the void stretching across the room. It seems as if everything other than the man’s bedroom is decorated frugally, and perhaps that’s a good thing. Fewer obstacles on their way to freedom.

Louis goes first; Harry staying close behind with a hand placed upon the aforementioned boy’s shoulder for strength. He can’t hear his own breaths anymore or his steps that creak underneath his weight. This is all an illusion standing in queue to be shattered against his palms and open the ground beneath his feet and drag him down there again. As his pulse picks up he can distinctly see something moving in the corner of his eye, more animate than a shadow but too bland to be a person.

Louis’ shriek is jarring in his ears and Harry feels his hand slip off his back to dangle helplessly in the air, sending him headlong to hit the floorboards. Spots dance before his eyes and breaks apart to divulge Louis’ struggling form with two fat arms squeezing the air out of him. Harry crawls backwards over the hallway floor and blinks to clear his vision and understand whatever is happening in his vicinity.

Not only are they accompanied once again by the monster, but in his hand is a smaller blade, resplendent in the exhausted afternoon gloom as it grazes Louis’ throat next to a lit cigarette that puffs sparks against the boy’s pristine chin. Louis stands frozen in his arms, staring at Harry like time has ceased to exist and all that’s left is presented in this space between for walls. Then he gazes towards the door right behind the younger boy, back at Harry, then the door again. Harry just shakes his head, solidly stuck with his fingertips against the wood and his feet flat while his heartbeat is killing him from the inside and out.

The man doesn’t move either. His eyes flicker with both fury and amusement upon seeing the two boys struggle, sucking the will to live out of them both slowly, slowly, and using it to fuel his actions when he presses the tip of the cigarette to Louis’ skin fervently as if to drill through his jaw. Louis screams, his eyes screwing shut and the stick sizzles against him in time with each satisfied vibration going through the man’s belly, and the sound permeates Harry’s ears until it’s the only thing he can think.  _If I can save my own skin I’m not coming back for you._

Harry continues to shuffle over the floor and turns around so that he can’t see the actions taking place behind his back but still hear the thuds as Louis thrashes and the screams tearing from his core. The door just stands there as if some secret gate to heaven, and in a way it is. It’s his escape.

He gets up and stumbles and yanks the handle in panic as his eyes flit over the surface in hope to discover some hidden switch to let him out. None of his fruitless attempts work; the door is locked and will remain so until a key is found, and that is the sort of time he doesn’t have. With smoke prodding at his eyes he falls back down to the floor, tears spilling while his foot fails him and nails him to the ground.

All he can do is keep his eyes from closing, fighting to stand once more and limp forth to watch the man throw Louis down, small irate spots colouring his face that works as a sort of skin disease. Louis regards him with a gaze solely fixed on his face and Harry feels almost honoured to be the one Louis seems to hold onto, so he dives back to the floor and tries to shelter him from the man. Louis curls into his chest easily with motions that can be seen as practised at first sight, and Harry does his best to be a human shield for him and ready himself for any eventual blows to his spine, neck, or stabs.

Who the next scream comes from is a mystery, but Louis is left down there as Harry is tugged up by his curls to face to man with two mere inches keeping their faces apart. The air from Harry’s lungs still has a certain unique sweetness to it that hits the man’s musty one that signals calamity and goes cascading down the boy’s face with deadly precision. Harry swallows and takes in the man’s empty features, nearing the dull state but holds a fire to them anyway that won’t burn out for a long time. His eyes are blank and insipid, staring at him with a look fitting for a starved man entering a restaurant and the disgust found in sophisticated people taking notice of a hobo camping on their front porch.

Steel is placed against his cheek where the man now chooses to pinch his face together to the likes of a fish’s one that makes his bitten lips pout and nose to point up impudently. Then his lips are parted, the knife settling between his lines of teeth and rubbing against the corner of his mouth lightly.

“It’s fitting,” the man mumbles. Harry feels a rush of distress shoot through him and stabbing holes in his insides. A laugh bubbles from the man’s thick lips. “It has two names you see,” he continues, pleased when Harry gasps and nearly bites the blade upon feeling the knife beginning to cut through his skin. “A Glasgow smile.” Harry swallows down the blood starting to pour down his throat as he tries not to utter a sound. The taste is enough to cause him endless nightmares. The man smoothes a thumb over his lip to hold him still, one hand still crushing his wrist as the knife slips further into his flesh, “and a Cheshire grin.” He chuckles again and glances up from the blood to meet Harry’s teary eyes, moving the knife away to the other side of his mouth to begin cutting there as well. “Coincidence, right?”

Harry chokes on a lump getting caught in his throat, his whole body jerking and the man presses their bodies together with a grunt to keep him in place as he cuts contentedly. He doesn’t know this man, right? He can’t. It’s absurd.  _In that case it’s one hell of a coincidence._

His lips are a vivacious red tone with blood oozing from the smaller cuts as well as the corners of his mouth and everything there is cold like a winter morning with frost tinting the windows. He can feel the burn of the blade but he can’t really feel the involuntary twitches his muscles make when flesh meets metal, and it makes his skin crawl.

Suddenly the pressure disappears and he hears a growl slip from the man’s mouth when the knife clatters against the floor, and he pushes Harry away in frustration to aim a blow at Louis who’s gotten to his feet once more. The blade flies across the floorboards, getting stuck in a gap between two and settling there like Excalibur. Harry rolls away before Louis has the chance to fall on top of him, hearing the cut off noise the leaves the boy’s mouth and seek its way into Harry’s heart.

Once again the man slings them both over a separate shoulder where they bounce as he walks, eyes wide and soul waiting, but not another word is spoken. Harry glances towards the door and the distance building between them with each step the man takes towards the cellar, so he starts to squirm and pound his fists against the man’s back with bruised and beaten knuckles that seem to have no effect whatsoever. It’s with a deep sigh that the man lets him fall to the floor, eliciting a scream from the green eyed boy who curls into a wrap of limbs and sobs. The fall and strain of the sounds passing through his throat has the cuts in his mouth splitting up and for his fingers to fly up and try to pinch the pieces of skin back together, hot air flowing out from his lungs rapidly as he listens to Louis being carried back to the basement with heavy steps reeking of either disappointment or frustration from the man. Harry is glad that there isn’t a mirror nearby for him to gaze into and study the bloody smile that threatens to burn into his features and become a permanent part of him.

Soon he joins Louis in the darkness again, having been dropped nearly on top of the boy and messing up his shoulder even more by the sudden weight addition. Their craved freedom slips through their fingers much like sand would, and Harry feels his heartbeat slow down in time with the vanishing sunlight.

He doesn’t feel like he owns the right to be upset, or even saddened by the fact that he just lost his fragment of a chance to live a normal life, because surely there must be more horrifying things awaiting them just around the corner?


	4. Part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I have excuses for not writing this faster or sooner? Well of course, but they're not really excuses. So, sorry for the delay, but here it is :)

There is a persistent pounding in the back of his head that acts like a frightened child knocking on her parent’s door, and it has been there ever since he regained power over his broken joints. Harry is somehow sitting up, trailing his shaking fingers across the ragged cuts cracking from the corners of his mouth. It probably looks like he’s dived headfirst into a bath of squeezed cherries but only managed to dip the bottom half of his face. He can’t quite feel the drips of blood sliding down his throat and chin anymore, and he’ll have to admit that it makes him content for the scarce moment. Louis’ back is leaning against his, and Harry’s veins cool dangerously when the small body stops shivering and jerk against his until Louis is stone.

Their skin is cold, and Harry can’t help but shiver when he toys idly with Louis’ motionless fingers and cranes his neck back to search for the other boy’s gaze in the dark without finding success in the task. He tries to yawn but his ulcerated lips barely allow him to form an “o” so he relents to breathing with his white lines of teeth scraping unpleasantly against each other and his trembling fingers to groggily pinch the skin back together to form a somewhat smooth surface, only to hiss in pain a moment later when the cuts tear up beneath the pads of his fingertips.

Louis’ hand slides up to rest on his shoulder, and with ragged movements the chilly hand rubs into Harry’s skin comfortingly as the younger boy gazes up at the ceiling. Or, in the general location of where it should be.

He can’t sleep – could barely fall into an uneasy slumber back home, to be fair – and the picture he paints of himself inside his head resembles what could be either a scarecrow or a voodoo doll, except for the lack of needles piercing his skin. The figure in his head is losing his will to fight and that old flame burning deep within the core of his being is fading away into a void of wonders and questions, asking why, inquiring replies to what the future holds.

And in between all of these gaps in the future comes the anxiety and fear sneaking up to prepare for an assault. The figure, this imagination of his, is in doubt. It’s a decision between simply relying on his hope, as so many stories and legends speak of, and stop trying to break free because when he does that he ends up as a human canvas with knives for brushes. Or this other pleasant option, where he continues to seek flaws in the cellar walls and ceiling, wishing to find something aberrant in the man’s routines, but in order to do that he must climb out of the dark hole he’s sat and take his time to observe or take aim on an open window to then be torn apart mercilessly by bloodthirsty jaws that wants nothing more than to destroy him.

None of the two ways seem good, especially not since Harry has chosen the worst of times to be picky.

“Isn’t the sky abnormally blue today?” Louis rasps behind him with gentle fingertips still moving around, inviting a calming sensation to settle down to rest in soul.

At first Harry is positive that his sense has flown out the window and that even Louis, this little boy of flesh and bone, is a freakish creation of his mind that overlaps with the delusions and voices that have begun to accompany him lately, but he feels the tiny changes in the circles which Louis’ fingertips trace upon his sore skin, so he chooses to hope for this to be real. This tiny fragment of his new life as a pet.

“What the fuck are you on about?” Harry asks with a voice rough from not speaking for hours.

“Just look up.”

Harry complies, finding the endless vacuum of darkness above. Surprise.

“Louis-“

“Close your eyes if that helps.”

He rolls his eyes and rests his head against Louis’, both boys breathing raggedly. Harry doesn’t have time to find the right words to protest with.

“Take that cloud for example,” Louis says softly and Harry can feel the boy’s arm lift to point through the roof, “My grandmother always used to paint this kind of cloud whenever the opportunity arose – these sharp edges, yet smooth-“

“This is stupid,” Harry grumbles and lowers his head to concentrate on picking his cuticles apart with his nails and teeth.

“- and I mean, these fields… God, I want someone to film a movie here,” Louis rambles on, still completely unfazed by the other male’s snappy mood, “No, better – an entire museum dedicated to tell amazing and breath-taking stories about that river over there. These small country roads with their quaintness features… oh my.”

Harry moves awkwardly. He can hear Louis’ smile in the words leaving the pair of thin pink lips, so he lets his eyelids fall down shut and listens to whatever Louis throws at him.

“If I could spend every day of my life under that tree I would be the luckiest man alive. I mean those leaves, damn.”

“It sounds like you’re turned on by nature,” Harry mutters and Louis chuckles quietly but heartfelt at that.

“It kinda does, doesn’t it?” Louis’ tense posture loosens up to the point where they’re supporting each other’s weight entirely.

Harry licks his lips, feeling the foul taste of his own dried blood.

“Can you hear the silence? The hum of all the birds?”

“I guess,” Harry shrugs.

“You can’t guess, dipshit – do you or do you not?”

“Fine, I do.”

“’s what I thought,” Louis says contentedly, “so what do you see?”

“Don’t push me,” Harry warns.

“I’m not! It was just a question.”

“How about you take the lead for now and I’ll listen.”

“Yeah, what else are you going to do?” Louis snorts and Harry feels the small hand leave his shoulder much to his disapproval. “You can feel the sun setting in the west and the sunshine nipping at your skin, licking your ears-“

“That’s disgusting.”

“Is it you or I who are telling the story?” Louis asks and Harry actually lifts his hands in defence at that. “So. The shadows are gorgeously displayed over the ground and the grass swaying lazily in the wind, like it’s waiting for something. Then there’s the breeze – oh the breeze… It whispers the strangest things and most outrageous secrets without needing a sign from you to spill them. It’s like a giant fan on a summer day, one of those when everything but your nails are sweating, and it comes down to rest over you like a blanket of security. Washing away everything that can do anything to harm you.”

And Harry sees it, feels the grass tickling his bare toes and the sunshine replacing his blood to run through his veins. He lies under that tree Louis described, the shadows falling over his once pristine features and together they sew his skin back together.

It’s almost as if Louis senses his thoughts because the elder begins to stand on wobbly legs that buckle under the weight addition and then crouches in front of him cautiously, a dainty hand settling caringly on the younger boy’s shaking shoulder. Harry’s eyes open wide in the pitch black to see the outlines of Louis’ frame leaning forward, alike a spying eagle. Then there’s a light pressure on his lips and he hisses sharply, moving back with jerky movements to escape the burn.

“We should clean those cuts,” Louis says silently, and Harry cringes at the thought that Louis must have felt the gorges in his skin and smeared his blood out. It’s nauseating. “They could get infected you know, or have insects crawl in.”

Once more Harry finds himself rolling his eyes at the boy, but it’s not like either of them can distinguish each other so it doesn’t matter. Louis sits too close to him, caressing his chin thoughtfully and staring solely straight ahead while keeping his touch away from the wounds at the same time. At least to the best of his ability.

Finally, Harry sighs, “What do you suggest, then? I’m fairly sure that anything qualifying to be used in medical terms down here is just as toxic as whatever may crawl into me.”

“I am aware of that,” Louis muses with a voice dearly holding onto its jagged edges, like he’s drunken too much tequila, “I’m just stating facts.”

He gets up and stumbles away from Harry’s small quivering body seated so helplessly on the floor amidst all furnished chaos. A dull bang is heard, followed by a sharp hiss rasping its way out of the blue-eyed boy’s throat. Harry peers that way.

“So that’s a thing we’re doing now?” he asks, a little louder than he’d desired to make sure that his voice is carried to Louis’ ears. Louis’ stomach wails before the male can reply himself. “Take that for example. It’s been doing that awfully often lately.”

“What a shock,” Louis says. Harry can sense an exaggerated eye roll and envisions how Louis’ forehead creases like expired bread where he tiptoes around the pools of poisonous water that has so eagerly flooded this underground space with nothing but distress written across his features.

“It hurt like hell-“

“Statement!”

“-but I think my entire jaw is numb now so it’s okay.”

Louis curses again.

“Any luck in finding a cure, Tomlinson?”

“I’m doing this for you, you know,” Louis grumbles to the sound of an empty bucket venturing over the floor in excitement at being released into the world.

“I’m fine,” Harry says firmly and lies down with his arms holding his head up to create the view of a void where there should be ceiling.

The shadows from his childhood are creeping up on him, as are the monsters. The ones with the huge claws and fangs shining in the light from his sister’s old flower lamp, stomping outside of his door to make the floorboards creak jarringly in his sensitive ears and twisting the doorknob whilst gurgling out laughs. He sees them wherever he happens to let his gaze linger for a second too long, whenever he feels the pain go away long enough for a flame of hope to flicker in his gut and assure him that it’s perfectly fine to take a nap as long as he’s on his guard.

They sneak around his bloody curls, whispering atrocities and dirty secrets to him, and nip at his toes that the duvet couldn’t cover without leaving his chest to the frigid atmosphere of his usually serene bedroom. When a storm was passing by as a brief guest outside his window the glass used to rattle hostilely and all lights that banished the creatures of the night would flash like thunder roaring inside the small room in Holmes Chapel, though outside was only the smatter of soft gelid rain against the forlorn glass.

Only one thing is managing to keep his demons in check as he drowns in the ambient nothingness, and that is the silent feet padding around the water stained floor searching for a remedy to his chopped smile. Listening to Louis wander around helps him keep away the sentiment of being asphyxiated.

“I’m serious Louis,” he speaks up throatily with long fingers tracing up and down his neck as if to cast a spell over his vocal chords. “There is nothing in here for you to find and claim, so just get back here before you injure yourself.” Stillness is once again ruling the space between them. “Please?”

Louis joins him hastily again, tripping over his feet in the black and slumping down gawkily which startles the younger boy.

“Sorry,” Louis mutters.

“It’s sort of nice that there isn’t any light down here,” Harry then says. He can very well feel the shocked gaze burning from Louis’ arctic eyes. “I mean – I don’t know about you but if we’re going to die here I’d rather not see myself fade in the process, you know?”

Louis hums quietly and shifts to lie down next to him, confirming his words.

Harry’s tongue darts out lethargically to moisten his lips, avoiding the malformed shape of his mouth that curves up and casts splatters of blood across his snow skin.

“Do you think people will be able to look at us like they used to? And not, like, freaks, or whatever. Animals, perhaps.”

Louis slides his thumb weightlessly over Harry’s cuts, ignoring the wince from the younger boy and instead flips over to lie on his chest and lean over Harry’s closed eyes.

“That’s ridiculous,” Louis whispers, scoffing emptily and removing his fumbling fingers as to not tear up any of the scabs. “Of course they’ll look at you. You’re Harry Styles.”

Harry doesn’t quite figure out how to reply to that, and the only sign he gives to confirm that he’s heard the words is the petty smile blooming out over the middle of his lips – the only part that is still intact of that area.

For a moment the shadows have vanished and been replaced by a caring boy with a dislocated shoulder, sending both scorns and thoughtful mumbles his way and receiving the same treatment. It uses the function and space where nightmares would have else jumped in as horrifying fillers, and that’s nice if anything.

“I don’t think he’s gonna eat us,” Harry breaks the silence. It’s as if someone has chucked a heavy rock into a still lake at dusk, circles spreading over the surface and destroying the sense of peace brought to the place. “If he had wanted to, wouldn’t he just have killed us already?”

“What are you suggesting?” Louis throws right back.

“I’m not suggesting anything; I’m simply expressing my conclusion.”

“That’s a conclusion?” Louis snorts with a tiny laugh slipping with it.

“Maybe it’s a statement.”

“Yeah.” Louis rolls back to stare at the sky, feeling as if he’s out camping and waiting for trillions of stars to bare themselves up there and set a twinkle to his existence. “Maybe.”

The baby cries begin to loop upstairs in a wicked symphony, the brittle voice fractured and tearing at the seams. Louis wants to cut off his ears.

“If I’m throwing up all over you, I apologize,” he says dryly, “but those cries make me experience nausea in places I never thought I could be sick in.”

“It’s quite a miracle that you have survived this long,” Harry comments, a wry smile tugging too eagerly at his lips all while he focuses on building walls inside of him to keep the frequent tremors away from his heart and brain. They somehow seem to stop by his thighs.

Louis doesn’t hear the sentence spoken.

“If… I just- It seems improbable for him to have an infant up there. I didn’t hear anything when he was about to slice-“ He falls quiet, letting his eyelashes flutter and listens to their heartbeats. “Shouldn’t he or she have made a little more noise while he was, you know, and we were… you know.”

Harry shuffles along the floor, feeling the gelid cellar floor through the pools of copper water. He slumps down gracelessly next to the blue-eyed boy, allowing vulgarities to fall from his lips as the concrete hits his bum.

“Or he killed it.”

Louis’ body stiffens against Harry’s, cold vibes running through his bones cruelly.

“Or that.”

“So… How are your burns?”

“Alright. I actually didn’t realize I’d received them until you reminded me.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Harry nibbles on his bloody lip, holding back a scratching cough that threatens to break loose into the void. “You know, I don’t actually _hate_ you.”

“That is so kind of you to admit, but I think we’ve already established that,” Louis says, irony oozing from his tone, but as a difference from previous times his voice is somewhat lukewarm instead of arctic.

It’s nice.

 

The next time they see sunshine is one early afternoon when the labile man cracks open the forlorn door in the ceiling and urges them to climb. Louis’ mind may play tricks on him and create vivid illusions and sentiments that breach his brain and heart, but he’s sure to feel his ribs poke sharply from his chest beneath the very tip of his fingertips. Never has he desired a clock as much as now, or an even greater wish would be to have a calendar. At least then he’d have a sense of the time that has grown to scarce.

Harry had aided him in the task of returning his shoulder to its normal position. The first attempts had torn screams from the elder boy, who bit despondently into his arm to muffle the undesired noises that would – at worst – gain them the man’s attention; he who had yet to acknowledge their existence at all since their failed escape. Harry had then told him to lie down, using the abandoned blanket they’d found to soften the substratum. Soon after the shoulder was back to its original state, after a rather callous twist from the younger boy who then couldn’t stop his apologies from pouring out for hours.

Upstairs isn’t such a different sight from previous times on the floor, yet Louis holds in a sob as he lets his palm skim over the walls briefly in fulfilled longing. Harry walks unsteadily beside him, gazing forth in solidity at the dusty window in the living room. His foot has healed enough to support half of his weight as it should, but Louis still hears him complain during the younger’s short, frequent walks around the basement. Whether it is to make himself feel less like a cripple or to assure himself that he’s perfectly fine and has control over his fate, Louis does not know. And quite frankly, at this rate he doesn’t want to find out.

It’s been too silent upstairs these past days, which has given off a false sense of peace and serenity when in reality it only prolongs the inescapable pain sure to come. So when the door cracks open and fresh air seeps into the cellar, revealing a grotesque form in the bright opening, Louis is torn between fright and relief. On the floor above he can either achieve freedom or death, but down in the dark time is frozen. It is not the ideal way to live one’s life, but it is the only place for the moment where he is assured a rotten sanctuary between the beatings hailing from the man’s battered fists.

Now he can breathe pure oxygen, although somewhat stale from the lack of open windows and vent as well as air-conditioning – which is, admittedly, not needed, since April is slowly ticking by, if Louis has done his counting right.

The man is walking before them, scuffling through the shadowy living room and disappearing out of their sight momentarily. Louis casts a glance out the same window Harry kept his gaze locked upon, noticing the greener fields and blooming trees. Spring has yet to bite into the earth, but when it does thousands and additional thousands of flowers and new sprouts will shoot up and colour the gloomy world. He yearns for that day to come.

Something cold brushes his palm, and as his head twists around he sees Harry staring into the kitchen, curling his fingers in between Louis’ languidly to form a loose and easily detachable grip. Psycho is preparing something in the other room, walking between the beaten fridge and the sink, breaking the pattern only to take out a large butcher knife and slide it right next to a red bowl which more than likely holds the contents he is working with.

Harry’s fingers scrape against his arid palm which lifts Louis’ eyes up to the pair of mild seaweed ones and the half-hearted smile forming on the boy’s amaranth lips, dried blood coating his jawline and cheeks. A gesture that brings warmth to Louis’ heart, but he can’t find it in himself to smile back. If what Harry’s cut lips are doing can be spoken of as a smile.

He doesn’t let go of Louis’ hand.

The two stand like statues in the living room as the man flies around grumpily in the kitchen. All signs are pointing towards a meal being prepared in there. Louis’ stomach keens in anticipation at that. The scents welling out form there are clean, the spices sharp and a light touch to it coming from the rays of water hitting a lettuce underneath the faucet in the dirty sink.

Louis’ gaze falls upon a grimy old fish tank, holding moss green water where dead fish bob around. The glass is too filthy to see through, having lost its translucence since long ago. He feels sick.

The clatter of pans being put down onto the stove and the divine scent of seasoning signal the frying of the clean cut steak, and a wheezing kitchen fan is turned on to rid he room of the forthcoming lingering smell. Bowls are being washed in haste, left to dry on the rack by the side, and Louis feels unexpected tranquillity creep up on him as the man directs all his attention towards the cooking food.

Harry tugs his hand weakly, moving to stand right behind him in front of the tainted fish tank and stare out over the muddy fields and the grey sunshine spitting down from the cloud-cover. This prevents eye contact from the man in case he’ll decide to check up on them.

“Do you think he’ll let us eat?” Harry asks with a coarse voice, just about lower than a whisper. Louis traces his thumb over the younger’s palm in patchy circles, feeling how rough it’s become during their time in the house.

“I hope to God he will,” Louis mumbles back while fighting the sensation of famine that threatens to consume him.

“It smells good.”

“Anything other than rats and piss is good.”

Harry snorts mutely into his neck, tickling the strands of baby hair that grows there wildly. “You’re getting cynical.”

“I’m realistic. There’s a difference.”

“Well, it’s very small.”

Louis glances back, over both of their shoulders, spotting the man eyeing them impassively and completely still by the sink, holding the scarlet tainted knife in a light grip. Harry scratches his hand again to regain his attention, but Louis doesn’t dare to tear away his eyes as the blade twists in the giant pair of hands. Eventually Harry turns as well, letting the boy’s hand slip from his own to study the man’s position and physique.

Once the man returns to finish the steak and half-ready salad Louis takes a panting breath.

“Easy,” Harry mumbles, running his cool palm down Louis’ arm in caution.

“I think he prefers us silent.” Louis brushes off his palm, rubbing his skin to relive the ancient warmth that used to pump through his veins, stepping away to face the kitchen entirely.

The opening behind the taller boy has a high number of bumpy pencil lines drawn on the doorframe from around two feet to five, and a few year marks scribbled between them. Louis doesn’t want to see.

His mother started one of those lines once he started growing properly as a four year old, switching over to others mirroring his sister’s growth once he became old enough and told her, slightly embarrassed, that she should stop and monitor the twins instead. Hopefully they’re still painted on that doorframe, more eminent and printed on a less chipped surface than this one before his eyes. He hasn’t remembered to look.

Harry is about to speak up about the fall of Louis’ expression when the fan is turned off behind them briskly and the sounds of plates echo through the uncanny house.

“Why don’t you come and sit, boys?”

Glasses are waiting to be filled with milk, water, or some effervescent lime liquid fizzing by the side of the empty plates and rusty cutlery. The man is sitting with two chairs on either side, well within reach for him to twists their necks if they misbehave. In a shallow container lies the pieces of meat he so tenderly cared for earlier, tinged with a burgundy layer mixed with red and black dots from seasoning.

Something flares heatedly in the man’s eyes when none of the rigid boys move.

“Should I cook you instead? SIT!” His boisterous voice makes the glass in the window frames rattle.

Their bare feet scrape against the floorboards as they move erratically, sitting down bearing a chary sentiment and their hearts holed up in their throats, thudding vigorously beneath their flesh.

Harry reaches out first after the silence begins to grow insufferable, with hands trembling and almost spilling the water from its decanter but manages to get it all in the glass by some miracle. Psycho doesn’t move during this, not when the green eyed boy lets a few drops of marinade slip from the steak he transfers to his plate, or when the fork he’s used clatters down onto the porcelain jarringly. Louis can almost taste his hunger the way he can taste his own.

So it becomes his turn. With large sapphire eyes he scans the table and beginning of a feast presented for him, wondering why they’re given this sort of reward when they have done nothing to deserve it. He grasps his fork with great difficulty, willing his hand to stop shake so terribly when he sticks the rusty iron into the meat, cupping his hand underneath to not let anything spill onto the table.

Harry has already begun slicing up his food, not bothering to glance up at either of the males accompanying him by the table, but grabbing everything he may have before he’s beheaded. God knows how long that will take.

Louis picks at his salad meanwhile, his mouth watering with a sizzling appetite he hesitates to let free. Anything as an exception from the dark and chilly basement is acceptable to him at the moment. Previous words spoken by the man have not gone missing in his brain; instead running alike frightened animals. But as soon as the lettuce leaf touches his tongue they scatter, fading away into a silver noise out of his reach and mix in among the thoughts he need to forget.

First now does the man shift in his chair, the creaking from beneath his weight sounding shrilly throughout the kitchen. He drops the double amount of the food the boys have taken onto his own plate, stabs the fork viciously into the meat and starts to gnaw at the edge of it, eyeing them both blankly with all the anger and annoyance from seconds before lost in the charcoal depths of his eyes. Juices from the steak dribble down his chin.

Outside the sun is breaking free from the clouds.

The landscape bathes in the wan afternoon light as shadows dance over the saffron fields slowly, in a waltz with the light. It casts silhouettes over the males’ faces, drowning them in bleached sunlight and gloom.

Louis stops eating momentarily, gazing out over the plains to catch sight of a hare thundering over the grass in all its glory, with the wind passing through effortlessly through its short umber fur coat. Its movements seem too foreign to him, and he wonders when he last time saw a wild animal. He’s had his hand full with schoolwork since the holidays ended, and as the papers and books had piled up on his desk the sliver of freedom he had during the break was slowly torn from him.

It’s sad, he thinks, how he first now gets a good perspective of things, and in prospect of the situation that hare holds his hope and is now running with it. Louis can only hope it will go far.

Suddenly the chair between him and Harry crashes to the floor and skids over the ash-like wood, and a hirsute hand tugs at Louis’ collar, effectively cutting off the incoming air to his lungs as it lifts him brutally from the sweet ground. The boy gasps gutturally, clawing at the single hand holding him inches above the ground at the same time as he stares dreadfully into the man’s eyes. Silence tucks the room into an asphyxiating blanket and Louis wants so desperately to heave. Perhaps he can then breathe, if he’s lucky enough.

Louis’ hands drain of power slowly, leaving him hanging to dangle perilously with a mouth gaping desperately to produce sounds that are not strangled cries for help. He seeks out Harry’s eyes as his grasp slackens, finding the boy motionless with spheres of green regarding the action in utter horror, observing the two males with abysmal perplexity.

The man begins to mutter incoherently, glaring at Louis in utter disgust as he proceeds to drop the petrified boy onto his knees on the floor, stomping on his back to make sure he stays down. Bleeding scratches form on his bare arms, lancing out over his pallid skin.

Harry stands briskly, earning that very same glare previously sent to Louis that sends terror deep into his core, keeping him frozen in place. As he remains still the man stands fully on Louis’ back, twisting his foot around like one trying to put out a smouldering cigarette whilst attempting to make Harry combust with the sole gaze directed to the curly haired bloke.

“Eat,” he instructs spitefully, maintaining a low tone drenched in malice and detest as he lifts his full weight from the floor, crushing the frail body beneath his feet. Louis whimpers miserably, gasping for air to come whooshing down his sore throat, praying that this weight won’t breach his ribs.

Harry sits again. It’s done slowly, but once he touches the chair fully the man steps onto the floor again to snatch Louis’ arms and drag him pitilessly across the abrasive kitchen floor. The man’s slate eyes are scorching as he deposits Louis’ limp figure on the weathered living room table. Harry can hear them sizzling.

He stares as the man briskly re-enters the kitchen to snatch a rolling pin from a forlorn drawer hanging ajar. The rumble from the man’s footsteps is daunting, and the young boy feels his blood drain from his body. Still he keeps on eating.

On the first hit to his soles, Louis shrieks. The wood bites into his skin, leaving splinters to stay buried beneath the hard skin as the man continues to smack down the solid object. Louis emits a sharp cry that pierces Harry’s ears and makes the young boy stop eating momentarily to watch the abuse. He watches as the rolling pin induces scarlet marks that bloom hazardously over Louis’ heels and toes as if he’s been frostbitten.

The continuous sounds falling swiftly from the boy’s lips are muffled when Louis decides to press his face to the chilled surface of the table he lays on, strangling each whimper and scream demanding freedom from his caged throat. He can barely breathe in this position, but with each slap striking his soles he is reminded why he can’t disobey the man’s wishes and desires. If one of those desires is to steal Louis’ functioning feet and replace them with bloody ghost pads, then that’s what will happen. Louis knows that it’s either that or death.

Harry can’t eat anymore.

He stares at Louis, repulsively enthralled as he prays for the man to not gaze back and see the lanky boy rigid in his seat, utensils cast aside to accompany his half-finished dish on the table top. Sickness boil in his gut like the core of a young volcano, waiting to seize the moment where it may finally erupt and wipe out everything in its way. Each hit rain upon his skin as much as it does on Louis’, only these assaults don’t leave traces.

The sensation of being famished has flown, but Harry can still feel its remains nibble avidly on his insides – though his mind is entirely occupied with the torture he witnesses. He licks over the slices shooting from the corners of his mouth as he tries to focus on the rancid taste. His eyes seek their way down to the table to linger upon the lime filled decanter and its bubbles fizzing as his hand reaches for the fork, gently stabbing the lettuce to stuff into his mouth.

The man wraps Louis’ hair around his finger to yank the boy’s head back abruptly, causing screams to billow from Louis now that he can’t detain them anymore. His jaw strains to sever his skin as the man bends him backwards as if to fold the pained boy like newly dried garments. Louis’ fingers scratch the old table in fruitless attempts to channel the pain to somewhere that isn’t his sore soles. They must be bleeding buckets by now, surely.

Time ventures on and soon Harry sees his clean pate shine at him with bleak sunlight dancing over the black scratches inflicted upon the porcelain by sharp, inconsiderate slashes from a fork or knife. Silence rules the house, and he hasn’t dared to shift his gaze away from the absent food since all sounds vanished. He hears mumbles and the howling wind bite ferociously at the rotten façade and exterior of the godforsaken building. All spiders and beetles who have come to seek peace in gaps between floorboards and broken windows are crying out in woe.

Harry runs his finger around the outer navy lines of his plate, transfixed in the small sliver of coarse skin poking out from beside his cuticle. Blood coats his fingers like nail polish – most of it from when he’s let himself fleet away in thought enough to scratch at the malformation of his lips and tear the scabs open. He has absentmindedly begun to bite his nails down to the bone and farther, earning his body more wounds to heal and repair. Reflexes are what’s to blame, he tells himself. Old habits.

A ginormous hand settles tautly on his shoulder, clasping the limb crudely and shakes him slightly. There is another moment of silence before Harry can hear the man’s lips split into a satisfied grin. Upon seeing the empty plate, Harry thinks.

“Good boy,” the man whispers in his ear tartly, picking up the plate gently to place it in the sink and let water wash the leftovers off entirely. He walks back into the thin shadow falling from Harry’s frame onto the floor, sliding both of his hands around the adolescent’s throat to cup his chin. His fingers dip into Harry’s wounds, pinching them playfully before yanking them apart in one fluid motion.

Harry produces a weak cry, slumping forth in his seat only to find himself unable to breathe because of the hands squeezing his reddening throat.

“After I’m done with this meal I want that boy to have finished his,” the man tells him. It’s spoken as if the man chooses to confide Harry in an intricate secret, with lips caressing the words lovingly as if afraid to let them spill.

Harry nods, tears assembling dangerously in his eyes. The insufferable pressure put upon his wounds dissipates as the man pats his cheek before sinking down in the sorrowfully creaking chair in the middle. Harry rises on wobbly legs, padding over the kitchen floor quietly with Louis’ salad filled plate glimmering in his tender hands.

Louis lies on the table still, motionless as his lids reveal a miniscule glimpse of the azures beneath. They glance up at Harry in a haze of lassitude and his fingers move slowly, as if to reach out for help, while the rest of his body is frozen in place. Louis’ breaths are soft and intermittent, and when Harry kneels to tilt his chin up carefully they sweep over the younger’s hand like evanescent brushstrokes.

The plate ends up in Harry’s lap where he has sat down on the cool floor in front of Louis. It sits completely still as Harry pierces the meat and lettuce with a fork, gently coaxing Louis to part his lips and chew the bits presented to him. Louis doesn’t move during this action, and Harry briefly wonders if the man did something else to him that the younger missed in his mental isolation.

When Louis shakes his head at the food impaled on the rusty fork Harry sighs, letting the meal waft to the back of his mind for a moment. His fingers stroke Louis’ jaw, pleading for him to continue as Harry casts anxious glances back to the kitchen, listening to the jarring scrapes of a knife against the porcelain. Louis looks miserable like this.

“I can’t,” he says silently and squirms away to the best of his ability in hope of hiding from Harry’s hawk eyes in the shadows. Harry who lifts Louis’ chin up once more, gazing into his eyes in desperate entreating as the fork once more grazes his lips in a caress. He shakes his head.

“I can’t,” he repeats as his eyes flit over the snug curvature between Harry’s lips and the black smeared blood there. The fork slips past the aperture between his parched lips easily and he wants to heave so badly the moment he tastes acrid flavour on his tongue; spices and texture huddling into a disgusting lump. He burkes the sounds of anguish anxious to escape his gullet. Harry doesn’t need to be bespattered with such things. Not in a house like this.

When Louis dares to open his eyes – the last bits of food waiting to be forced down – the man stands agaze in the doorway, assessing their feeble figures with his perilous eyes that shine of ceruse in the candescent setting. The man seems burlier and blanker than ever in this solid bearing.

Louis summons the last drips of resistance in him and swallows. At that Harry offers a discouraged smile, yet to be aware of the presence lurking in the encompassing shadows cast from the walls. The whole house is built upon doleful rooms and misery, with boards of death and a foundation created with the help of screams uttered in agony. Right now, Harry doesn’t seem to sense this. The more Louis looks at his bifurcated lips the more they seem to germinate in colour and different mottles of soft baby pink. The smile is almost genuine.

Harry’s fingers trace up Louis’ cheek in an ephemeral touch as the smile resting on his lips refuses to wane.

“You were so good,” he mumbles in praise, letting the plate slide from his hand to settle mutely on the ashen floorboard so that he may study the weeping boy’s face. He flattens back Louis’ sweat matted hair tenderly, swallowing thickly when his eyes fleet over the unshed tears shining in Louis’ azure eyes

Louis despises the contrast between torment and Harry’s touch. It’s awful to feel the transition from callous beatings and cuts to the words and actions of someone in the same boat as him, also struggling with his grasp around reality whilst praying for his sanity. Louis can’t have that at the moment. He meets the man’s eyes submissively, hoping to avoid a second punishment. Relief crashes down upon him as the man makes no effort to mobilize himself and stares at them indifferently as if watching the morning news.

“How are your feet?” Harry asks silently, unwitting still of their company. His hand lies weightlessly on Louis’ and his thumb rub into the boy’s skin to coax words from the other. But Louis won’t answer. He’s doesn’t focus on Harry, instead darts his eyes over the body prowling in the doorframe waiting to strike. The man has those pair of flaring pits holding nothing but loathing and arrogance; the kind that feels like needles on your skin, the kind that can’t be scrubbed off. What unnerves Louis is that he can’t differentiate anything in those grey pits. Now they’re holes in asphalt, voids into the sewers where vile water runs to be purified.

He can’t supress the ominous vibe poisoning his veins. He takes note of the Pimm’s hanging from the chubby fingers that clench tightly around the bottle’s neck as if resisting the need to break it into a thousand iridescent shards. Tranquil is settled in the monster’s features.

The man creeps forth and Harry twists his head around at breakneck speed when the portentous creaking of the ancient floor permeates the confining walls. Louis whimpers. The man brusquely shoves Harry aside with his wrinkled palm pressed abhorrently to the youth’s face to crouch before Louis. His rotten breaths are inhaled by the sobbing boy who squeezes his eyes into slits, willing the world to fall away in fragments and leave him be. Immense hands trace over Louis’ body, down his thighs to his feet, and he bites into his wrist when his soles are pinched maliciously.

Louis pictures his sisters sat in their kitchen, the British afternoon gloom enlightening the homework spread out before them together with the flickering lamp hung solitarily above. They’re chatting animatedly about Mrs. Peterson’s new terrier, about the upcoming school prom which they can’t attend due to their low age, about maths and about the serial killer raging in the adjacent shire – matters that shouldn’t have to bother their juvenile minds. They beam up at him when he enters, and all at once start to babble about their respective days.

Louis holds onto that picture as fingers poke and pull at his sore feet.

Harry lies on the floor, a discarded piece of paper that missed the waste paper bin. He should jump up, snatch the man away from Louis or break the giant’s neck. Perhaps kick him in the balls. But the sting of the rusty blade cutting into his skin to permanently mark him is enough to keep him still in woe; twisting his body so that he will look into Louis’ eyes should he decide to open them and in that case comfort him. Trivial things like school reputations, failed relationships and friends flocking around them don’t hold as much weight now as before.


	5. Part four

Once spring bids farewell and the early summer falls like a veil upon the world the air in the cellar is filled with clearer and sweeter air than ever before. Harry’s leg is near healed and his lips aren’t as parched and ulcerous as they have once been, though he is reluctant to speech and mostly sits in silence as to mirror Louis’ behaviour. At night the air is fresher, but during the hours of the sun’s reign it’s stuffy and moist of fluids other than rain. It’s like decay wafts about with each breath the two boys utter.

They are brought upstairs more often. Most of the time up there they spend in silence and stillness while observing the man’s daily routines and eating supper by the kitchen table. They are rarely served lunch anymore. Harry hears rats and other rodents creep between the walls of the living room and from watching the other boy’s shudders he suspects Louis does too. If they move from the statue positions they have been put in, the butt of the man’s smouldering cigarette scorch their skin or he slams their heads into the wall or floor. There gapes a hole through the boards in the hallway to prove that statement.

Harry has his eyes fixated on the tiny corpse of a fish resting among the stones at the bottom of a tank stood next to him. Louis leans on his shoulder, turned to face the telly flickering between channels and the man settled down in the single armchair there with a mountain of empty bottles scattered in the shadow of his feet. The sun has yet to shine though it’s summer, and Harry has begun to question the light’s existence. He perceives the fluorescence from the led lights over the sink and the blinding shine when the door to the cellar is barged open, but it has been long since he caught a glimpse of pure sunlight that isn’t a reflection through the clouds or seen through the straws of grass swaying in serenity outside.

Wind, on the other hand, he has felt caress his cheek. Despite the lack of sunshine, temperature has started to rise and one evening weeks ago the man bought a fan – a cheap model that would more than likely prove to break after being used thrice. Still it kept together even after numerous days of continuous usage, and Harry is grateful for this. It is perched on an abandoned bench in the kitchen, beside the freezer, and the few times he and Louis are allowed to move for a minute or two without being beheaded he spends with his face pressed against the protective structure shielding his skin from the blades rotating there.

It reminds him of the hot summers at home, when all windows and doors were wide open and all ceiling fans blew mild air around the different rooms of his home. His mother would be out in the garden to tend for the small seeds germinating there and his sister would relax in a declining chair with a Jonathan Stroud book in her lap and sunglasses resting on the tip of her nose. Wind was rare those days, hence the myriad of fans scattered around the lot. They’d eat dinner on the porch once the sun began to fall and Harry had barely swallowed his food before he ran in wide circles on the freshly cut lawn. The neighbour’s daughter would often join in but they mostly bumped into each other, causing them both to lie wailing on the ground whilst their parents rushed to aid the children.

With summer come all the colours sparking to life. Beneath beds of dead rye the earth begins to wake from its heavy slumber and introduces the next generation of plants to the incoming season. Harry has missed the green leaves coating the aged branches bending down to kiss the ground. Now that they have made their return it’s like meeting an old friend after years apart. He only wishes to let the bark scratch against his palm or even wound him if he fell into it. He reckons that pain would be sweet.

“He has passed out,” Louis mumbles and nods over to where the stinking man snores raggedly in front of the telly. Harry turns to see if it’s true, and when he spots the sleeping figure his heart somersaults. He moves closer on his tiptoes, pinching his nose to protect himself from the stench lingering around the area.

The creak of a floorboard beneath his feet causes the monster to stir, and soon he has Harry hanging by a fist crushing his throat. The man’s eyes are wild. Startled, even. When he sees that there is only a gaunt boy in his lethal grasp he lets go and falls back into the lounger with vulgarities coming from his mouth. He slings back one of the empty bottles in fury. Harry ducks with his hands covering his head for shelter and squeezes his eyes shut when the glass hails down on his back and neck. Louis reaches down a hand to tug him up. They lean against the wall in horror but the man has already forgotten about them. Louis lets Harry move between the wall and him and hopes they’re safe for now.

“Do you think he hears voices?” Louis asks in a whisper. Harry hides his face against the other boy’s chest.

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

Louis smells like warmth and kindness and Harry breathes him in with each breath he takes. The blue screen on the telly blares out electronic noises that only the two boys hear. The man stares ahead with a new flask in hand, throwing his head back to pour the black liquid down his throat. Louis runs his hand through Harry’s hair.

Once all the alcohol sloshes around in the man’s belly he stands and stomps out into the kitchen. He sits down on a chair with a jarring sound as it scrapes across the floorboards and cuts into the wood. He turns to his secret stash.

“Hey, look at that.”                                              

Harry lifts his head as he hears Louis murmur into his hair and glances out the window by their side. Far away in the distant woods a clearing appears, sunlit by the lack of clouds darkening that spot. Birches and oaks as well as pines and spruces stand tall in pride to form the open spot and the fair grass dances to accompany the light breeze. There gleams the sun, broken free from the roof to light the mossy stones rising from the ashes of winter.

Louis’ gaze flickers to Harry and back again, pivoting his head back to search the fields of life. His nails scratch the younger’s greasy scalp. With the sunlight licking the treetops the clearing resembles a haven. Harry exhales and his voice trembles as he speaks.

“I just wish we’d met under different circumstances.”

Louis swallows and with stiff fingers brushes the squalid tresses sticking to Harry’s eyelashes.

“That would have been nice,” Louis whispers in the Harry’s ear, ever cautious about the man’s sudden and villainous outbursts. The house reeks of sickening odours other than the abundant alcohol and it has worsened ever since the summer heat came down to rest on the house. If it hadn’t been for the fan Harry is sure they would have been fried alive within these encompassing walls. The scent is a variation from the piss in the cellar but far worse to inhale. It prickles his nostrils and tears at his lungs like poison, and it wouldn’t surprise him if that was in fact what it was.

“Tell me we’ll be okay,” Harry mumbles into Louis’ chest. Traces of tears cool against Louis’ hot skin. “Please fucking tell me.”

“We’re fine Harry. We’ll be fine.” Louis hopes that those feeble words suffice for the moment. “And you know, when we come home I’ll buy you a cup of tea and let you introduce me to your life.” He grins.

Harry’s breaths are more recurrent and quivering now and Louis knows he’s crying. “You’re stupid, Tomlinson. I kinda dig that. I just don’t think you want to be around me once we’re out in reality.”

“This isn’t reality?”

“You know what I mean,” Harry huffs and sniffles to wipe his tears away fruitlessly. Louis moistens his lips.

“Why?” he asks.

“It’s a mad world. We’ll only act as horrid reminders for each other – nothing but dreadful memories.”

Outside the light wanes alike so many times before and Louis can’t do other than to sigh and swallow his sorrow. “You’ll abandon me,” he states.

“No,” Harry whines. He steps away from Louis’ arms to scratch angrily at his reddening apple cheeks and lean on the opposite side of the wall to where Louis holds onto the wall. His legs shake. “That’s- I didn’t mean it like that. That’s not what I said.” As he speaks Louis notes that he doesn’t quite part his lips as his words continue to roll on. They only split apart by the front of the boy’s mouth. Louis wonders how badly the cuts in the corners of his mouth hurt.

Harry carries on. “I don’t want to look at you and be pained by tremors from re-living these days. I don’t want to associate you with agony, Louis. I’m sorry. Besides, how could I abandon you?”

“I’m not popular like you are,” Louis says. He doesn’t dare to glance at Harry or the fading sunlight outdoors. It’ll only make him sad. “I’m friend with my sisters, my mum, and Liam. You have the whole school before your feet and are free to have your pick in allies and servants. The rest of us don’t.” Thunder roars in the far away lands, and the sliver of sunshine bestowing them hope has left the skies like a flickering flame.

“I’ve looked up to you for years now, you know? I know I’ve been a right ass but that’s the truth.” Harry stares at the hollows in Louis’ cheeks, tilting the boy’s head left so that he can attempt to speak without words. Louis keeps his gaze still and distant.

“Louis.”

The creases in the blue-eyed boy’s forehead smoothen into nothing to let a diffident sigh leave his lips. Harry slides down in exhaustion against the wall to settle on the creaking floorboards with the bottom of a pair of mouldy curtains and Louis’ legs as company. Defeated, he pulls the dirty tee clinging to his body up over his head and sniffles into his knees which he hugs in a lethal manner. His curls poke out from beneath the garment and falls in slick stripes before his closed eyes.

“Ever since you came out people have been nothing but supportive of you,” he whispers. “Strangers just walked up to you to shake hands or hug and congratulate you. It was so fucking weird to watch.” He moves the tresses away from his face slowly and let them snake around his ears. “When I had figured myself out I’d lay sleepless at night, constantly worrying about how my mother and sister and the jerks at school would react. My mother who always frowned at the same-sex couples on TV and my sister who barely spoke to me and my friends who had hit me when we first met. And it made me furious that you, of all people, would be the one to walk out of the blaze unharmed.”

Louis sits down next to Harry and squeezes his own legs . He can hear the man stumbling around in the kitchen, most likely with his eyes wide and bloodshot, clutching a Baileys.

Harry’s breath hitches. “I was so fucking scared, Louis. I was fifteen – thought they were going to kill me or burn my stuff. And there you walked through the halls. You looked so happy and carefree. No troubles clouding your mind. I had to watch you every single day, constantly wishing I could take your place or come out without being stoned by the people around me. The ones in my vicinity wouldn’t be as kind as everyone had been to you, I knew that. My reputation was all I had. I just wanted to be free.”

The boy stares straight ahead with glistening eyes, putting his greatest effort into keeping those eyes tear-free and dull. Streaks of woe still run down his skin to gather by the tip of his jaw.

“When I woke up in the basement and realized that I was trapped down there with you right next to me I thought God hated me for sure, that He wanted to punish me.” He gazes at Louis when his lips twist into a wry smile. “But you’re not so bad.”

Louis watches as Harry shifts in his place, wiping at his nose and ruby-painted cheeks, wheezing.

“Come here,” Louis ushers, beckoning Harry into a tight embrace to let the younger cry, release the anxiety he has stocked for so long now. Muffled sobs fill the immense space of the living room and will turn into echoes of the boy’s despair the moment Louis loosens his grip and causes Harry’s shelter to disappear. Louis hushes Harry while trailing his palms up and down Harry’s back in a languid, calming motion. He feels Harry’s shoulder blades where they try to tear his shirt apart, and if his fingers trace the boy’s spine he can feel every single vertebrae and stress-shaped knot beneath the delicate complexion.

It’s frightening to see how pallid Harry’s skin have become, how the flecks of ash beneath his eyes grow more with every passing sunrise. Prior to the countless hours spent in the dark Harry had a certain glow to him made from his bright smile and crystalline eyes. Louis hasn’t seen that clear glimpse since they were abducted. Blood is etched into Harry’s lips repulsively like threads woven in his skin. It still appears splattered across his face, badly washed away paint like stripes of burgundy glue, focusing in on the corners of his mouth where they slash up his jawline.

Harry’s hands bunch up the fabric of Louis’ torn shirt in fists to hold the soaked fabric close to his body and rub his nose against it to breathe something other than death and mould. Each sob ripping through Harry has his back rising beneath Louis’ palm and Louis can’t do anything other than to hold Harry and fight back tears of his own. Neither of them react to the man’s brusque grumbling in the next room.

Harry gasps into Louis’ chest and with each inhale comes a small hitch in his wretched sobs before he exhales. He claws at Louis’ skin, but his nails are bitten down enough to not harm the other boy.

“I’m sorry,” Louis mumbles into Harry’s abrasive hair. His russet curls form a shattered halo around his head and tears dangle in the dirty damp strands falling in a veil before his closed eyelids. ”I’m sorry.”

The man ogles them from the kitchen with large liquescent eyes while twisting a cigarette between his fingers. It’s done clumsily and without much thought, but his motions are muted and abrupt, shadowed by the oncoming tempest outside in the wilderness. Smoke induces the air with its toxic nature, and lies in ribbons across the house like a lethal veil.

 

Harry wakes to a chortle – feeble, raw and patchy sounding.

It feels like his eyes are already open, but when he blinks they sting in exhaustion. A blanket with its edges soaked from being tossed into the constant puddles grazing the icy floor drapes his body. The breaths of summer have yet to make their awaited appearance below earth.

When he sits up he feels claws of rats slit his calves as they scatter, petrified of his awakening. He can’t feel anything beneath his fingertips as he runs them to assess the ground he lies on, and the moment he curls them into his palm pain singes up through his arm to elicit a muffled whimper from his dry throat.

A snort comes from the boy behind him, leaning against the wall and staring into the void presented before them. Harry twists his upper body in a fight against his sore limbs, reaches out with a trembling hand and bumps into the familiar tawny ringlets snaking around his fingers.

“What are you raving about?” Harry asks in a coarse voice.

Louis plucks the fumbling hand from his hair and coughs, yet another small laugh seeps out from the straight line formed by his lips pressed together.

“Nothing,” he replies with a shake of his head while his hand musses up Harry’s hair. “Just go to sleep.” Harry can still hear the delicate trace of humour in his voice.

“No, tell me.”

“Sleep now.”

Harry pushes at his arm in disagreement and settles next to him. Harry buries his head in Louis’ shoulder, yawning into the other’s ear. This causes Louis to chuckle once more and shove him away to create more space for himself.

“Please tell me,” Harry persists. Sleep and discomfort from all wounds and bruises grazing his snow white skin lumps his voice.

“You’re warm,” Louis mumbles. Harry brushes off the comment without a second thought.

“I can’t sleep dimwit, you woke me. Now please tell me what the fuss is about.”

They’re silent for a beat before Louis clears his throat.

“It’s- it’s not even that funny,” he breathes out in excuse. His conduct is more chilled and his tone is somnolent in Harry’s sore ears. Had not this prominent curiosity been thumping in his veins he would’ve fallen back into the restless slumber infusing him. Dreams have not invaded the restless sleep in weeks now, and he misses his nightly visions. Sometimes he’ll wake as if his mind escapes the only light space in his mind to venture onto darker and more deceitful paths away from the beam.

“Something that Liam said a while back,” Louis says. “It’s stupid…”

Harry only hums and tries to pierce through the dark ceiling with his eyes. The wall is cold against the back of his head where it rubs through his thin curls but he doesn’t dare to reach back and readjust them to the way they were before, keeping in mind all soundless creatures resting with the two in the sultry room.

“We’d gone to the café across the street during our break and our math teacher walked in right behind us – she’s quite the loony may I just mention and wears chequered and striped patterns in these ancient and forgotten colour schemes and her hair is inhabited by a billion birds. It’s just not a pretty sight. So we sat there and stared at her behind our coats. It rained that day, so her hair was messier than usual. Liam began to comment her looks under his breath as well as the things she chose to order. You should hear him talk sometimes; the guy is a born comedian.”

Louis coughs, as if all air leaves his lungs in a stampede to freedom. Harry runs his hand down the boy’s back, his touch kept light and elusive to not worsen the coughs or restrict Louis’ breath. Louis’ body shakes with each rasp of air whooshing out and he clings to Harry for comfort and stability as his inhales and exhales transit into a more natural manner and the only uncomfortable noise is when he spits on the ground away from their petite figures.

“Sorry,” he murmurs and settles into Harry’s embrace once again. Harry doesn’t respond at first. Darkness binds his gaze, but he tries to blink his eyes free of obscurity so that he may see Louis’ face in the black and study his features. Judging by the boy’s profuse voice Harry understands that Louis can’t have been awake for long. He wants to see the streaks of exhaustion for himself. He wonders if Louis feels the impact of this as hard as he himself does and longs to find out the answer by looking at the smaller male in the light of something other than the fluorescent lighting in the kitchen upstairs.

“I’d love to meet him,” Harry whispers.

“You’d be great friends.”

Louis traces his fingertips up Harry’s chin; feeling for the cuts blooming from the younger’s lips. Harry flinches and utters a faint chuckle.

“That tickles.”

“Is this okay?” Louis asks. The ragged outlines of Harry’s wounds feel like tiny bumps beneath the pads of Louis’ fingers. Dried blood patches it all together messily in a badly sewn quilt.

“It’s nice to hear you laugh,” Harry says. It’s sudden like a shot in the night. Louis’ fingers follow Harry’s lips when he speaks and proceed to trail down the boy’s chest and over to his own. Louis locks his fingers together, waiting for Harry to elaborate. No further explanation is made, so he cranes his neck and feels his warm breaths puff back where they hit Harry’s throat.

“It is?”

“Yes.” Harry tilts Louis’ head back down to squeeze him tighter. “It’s not something I hear too often and I’d rather listen to that all night than your sobs.”

Louis’ brows furrow in agitation. He glares forward into the dark.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I will just have to cry a little less-“

“That’s not what I meant, Lou. I was simply stating that I’m less concerned when you’re not writhing in agony on the floor. It wasn’t an insult. I’m past that and I figured you were as well.”

Whatever slick words once blooming on Louis’ lips dies. Kept silent he mulls over the sentence, and Harry’s benevolent intentions of care as well as the delicacy embedded in the boy’s words. He swims in deep waters when it comes to Harry and during their time spent in the cellar he has been forced to meet this intricate boy head-on. Now, where Louis lies in Harry’s arms, he can breathe the sorrow, desires and vulnerability reeking from the younger’s frame. Dreams and horrors all blend into a jumble of redolence alike a toxic cologne.

“I am,” he whispers and hugs Harry’s gaunt wrist with his thin fingers. “Old habits die hard, don’t they?”

“They do,” Harry says. “I’d hate to see us fighting in here.”

“What about when we get out?”

Harry sighs as if faced with an entire bookshelf of disorganized titles. He rubs his fingertips into Louis’ scalp and styles the squalid tresses into various freakish designs without gazing down. There, he knows, is nothing for him to see.

“Do you still believe that we are getting out in one living piece?”

“Well, yeah. If I don’t have faith, what am I?” Louis’ walls crumble and dust billows from their shredded remains. Harry doesn’t speak, but Louis feels the qualm radiating like body heat from the boy holding him. “Do they still burn?”

He stops his itinerant hand, resting his curious fingertips upon Harry’s sealed lips once again to trace the parched streaks of blood tainting his bleak complexion.

“They do,” Harry says. He grabs Louis’ hand in his and moves it far from his pasty skin. Serenity nibbles on the outlines of his psychotic mind while he toys with Louis’ fingers and entwines their malnourished limbs.

“And you meant what you said about my laughter?”

Harry’s assented hum is muted. “I did. Every word.”

Louis curls into Harry’s arms further to hide in the warmth of another human being equally abused as he. It’s as if they’re in their own little chrysalis, tucked away from the world’s abhorrence.

“You’re so fucking sweet, Harry. I’m sorry I’ve been too thick to see that.”

“Louis, don’t say-“

“No, let me feel remorseful,” Louis says, though his words disappear into the garment clinging to Harry’s scrawny torso. Harry’s hands twist and pull Louis’ hair for comfort. “I’m so, so sorry for all the shit I did to you. You deserve better than that and the obscenities I called you. I’m sorry that we’re here in this fucking house. I’m sorry for the majority of things I’ve done with you in mind, and I apologize.”

Tears prickle at Harry’s shirt like crystals of dew in the morning and his fingers slide from Louis’ scalp to the baby hair in his neck. These strands are softer and shorter – a pleasant texture to feel brush the lines of his palm.

“Fuck school,” he mumbles.

This draws a meek chuckle from Louis who slants his face away from Harry’s chest before he speaks. “Fuck school.”

A choir begins to sing above their heads. It sounds like distant angels. Harry wonders if halos float over their heads, if they wear white gowns.

“There is an armchair somewhere around here,” he says while moving to straighten his back to let Louis’ head slip to rest on his emaciated thighs, “And you shouldn’t sleep on the floor, you know.”

“I’m not going to sleep. There are far too many thoughts circulating in my head at the moment.”

Harry groans, inhaling a quick breath of toxicity from their surroundings. “You do whatever you like – I am finding that armchair.”

“Good luck,” Louis scoffs. Harry’s lips twist, not sensing the pain caused by the strain put on his marred skin.

It doesn’t take long for him as the distance between him and the piece of ancient furniture is less than an arm’s reach. It has a mysterious scent to it, the kind Harry knows crime novels bear with them between dissolving pages and torn bookmarks, or the good old grandmother fragrance with a hint of rat poison. The fabric of the armchair rips further when Harry sits down and sharp springs shoot up from amidst the seat with odd sounds that alerts both boys. A sweet sigh falls from his lips when the downy backrest caresses his aching muscles. Idly he lets his body sink into the material to slumber when his thoughts can’t.

“I found it,” he says breathily a second or two later.

“You sound like you’re having an orgasm,” Louis proclaims.

“Seriously, come over and take a seat. It’s like lying on a tiny cloud.” Harry’s eyelids slip to cover half of his eyes, gazing dazedly through the small gap.

“Yeah. Okay. Tell me where you are and I’ll follow your voice.”

When Louis joins him in the couch Harry tries to curl into one side to allow more space for the crawling newcomer. Louis ends up falling on top of everything when Harry attempts to pull him up by his arm and the springs below bore their way into Harry’s thighs and lower back. Hisses sprout from Harry’s throat at the searing pain.

“Shit, sorry,” Louis gushes and tries to disengage himself from the tangle of limbs without accidentally head-butting the adolescent underneath.

“Easy, easy.” Harry fists the back of Louis’ shirt, yanks them apart and moves Louis’ to lean against his bony chest. Harry holds him so that neither of them will fall onto the floor. Their limbs poke out from the seat.

“Tiny-cloud-feeling achieved,” Louis says. He appears bereft of breath, his voice thin.

Harry blinks when his gaze wavers up to the fissure by the door up above them and the reverent light dancing distantly in their sky – fairies look-alikes in their prime. Elusive happiness seeps into his heart at the chaste idea. It’s a feeling he can no longer grasp, and as soon as it rooted within him it is gone like summer rain.

Exhaustion wipes away from his eyes and head once the sliver of light deteriorates into nothing like before and he musses Louis’ hair for reassurance that the boy himself isn’t just another one of Harry’s fictional friends. That Louis is in fact laid down in his lap, breathing and tugging Harry’s fingers from time to time. Perhaps he also seeks reassurance.

“Harry, do you have nightmares?” Louis asks when the air becomes too stale to breathe and the rats appear to reproduce.

Harry is pensive about the answer, but settles with a sleek, “Yeah.”

Louis turns his head back, as if he can see Harry’s Adam’s apple bobbing or the way his dull eyes flicker around in the black encompassing them in thought that he may protect them both from creature sneaking around their feet. Louis’ pulse quickens.

“Like, sometimes I think I’m hallucinating,” he says soundlessly, “I’m sure that my eyes are open, but I can actually see stuff in front of me, like my hands and feet, so I must be sleeping. When we’re upstairs I see malicious shadows fuck with my head where they snake around corners faster than lightning, or I hear a knock on the window or a voice calling for us outside or whatever.”

“I know what you mean,” Harry says, “I see it too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s- it’s just so much more than seeing things. Everything…” The sharp noise of Harry’s pitiful chuckle is evanescent. “Everything is a movie, to me. No matter what happens I can’t seem to get it into my fucking head. It’s been so long and reality is slipping away from me and I can’t…” His frail voice cracks. “Sorry, I just… I’m glad you’re here. Without you I’d be lost to insanity by now.”

Louis’ body has stiffened and he lies with icy blood in Harry’s arms. The position resembles the one of an infant too much for Louis’ liking, with the way his limbs lie bundled together and his head resting over Harry’s heart. His eyelashes flutter when he seeks Harry’s skin.

“We’re in the same boat, aren’t we?” he whispers. “It’s not like I’m leaving without you, so there’s- you’re not gonna be alone, you know.”

A sniffle is caught deep in Harry’s throat. He wipes his eyes, forgetting that the traces of his tears can’t be seen through the dark.

“We’re a little…” He pauses so that his voice doesn’t break yet again. Louis’ gaze rests on him, he knows. He doesn’t need light to see that. “We’re a little fucked in the head.”

“And he too,” Louis says.

Harry closes his eyes. Fresh blood trickles from small tears in his lips, everything burns. Nails dig into his skin as Louis twists around, sits up in Harry’s lap and cocks his head in curiosity. Louis chuckles. It’s somewhat crazed, the sound he makes, but it’s light and just a pitch louder than normal. Harry brushes his fingers through Louis’ hair, combing the tresses free from knots as a brittle laughter of his own fills the daunting stillness.

“And he too,” Harry says, his grin chilling and broad.

“This reminds me…” All previous joviality is now devoid in Louis’ voice. Spindly hands tremble in patterns over Harry’s chest and neck, envisioning the invisible boy beneath his touch. “Shouldn’t we name him?”

“I think ‘psycho’ suits him pretty damn well,” Harry scoffs.

“Well, yeah, but…” Louis falls silent and shakes the frown from his lips. “I think I’ll sleep now, if I may.”

“Sure.”

“Right here.”

“I’m not going to let you continue to sleep on the floor, now, so yeah. And I’d rather have you close.”

Louis senses a vibe of apprehension in Harry’s train of thought where it rolls on into a reality where they are each to their own – perhaps locked up in different rooms on the floor above, separated to bathe in isolation. Therefore he does not acknowledge the words. He doesn’t need to.

“Alright, thanks,” he says, noting Harry’s small exhale of relief. He’ll be lying if he says that the regret doesn’t hurt. “One last thing…” Louis arranges his position, squeezed in between Harry and the downy back of the ancient armchair, his arms draped in grace around Harry’s hollow, yet lean torso. “You snore when you sleep. A lot, frankly.”

“You’re saying that you don’t?” Harry asks in a hum. It’s nice to have another body close – one that breathes and can talk. Even if it’s Louis Tomlinson.

“Goodnight, Styles.”

Harry listens as the boy’s intermittent breaths wane and are replaced with slow, quiescent ones that only indicate sleep. Solitary for the moment, Harry nestles deeper into the armchair in hope that it will swallow him and moves Louis’ legs to rest on his own thighs. Eventually shivers scuttle over his naked skin and he draws Louis closer, inhaling the traces of warmth laced into the boy and allows the slick filthy ringlets to caress his chin. It’s soothing, but he’s far too tense to fall asleep.

Louis doesn’t snore.

 

Fresh rays of dawn comes pure and uninvited after weeks of rain and mulling clouds, like God decides to shit on them this particular morning. Louis’ vision is filled with Harry’s flat curls and the younger’s eminent shoulder blades that point out above the large speckles of blood on his austere tee. They stand latched together in the hallway as their madman unlocks the bathroom door with immense difficulty and a rusty key and lock that haven’t crumbled beneath time’s weight. Louis is similar to a koala where he is thrown over Harry’s slumped figure, his pasty arms tied around Harry’s neck and his legs framing Harry’s thin waist and pelvis. Harry’s fingers curl around his ankles to hold him still.

Behind them lies the accursed bedroom with clippings and ancient photographs adorning the bare walls, all sealed together in the creation of a wicked puzzle. Rain has left splatters on the dusty windows, reducing the amount of dead beetles coating the once crystalline surface. Now that sun attacks the glass Louis can see the lime flecks of their organs that have not been killed by the downpour. They’re smeared and dribble down in some sort of senseless artwork. Louis wonders how the touch of it would feel beneath his fingertips.

The lock finally gives away as the despicable man grunts throatily and shoves the door open in rage. Harry’s glassy eyes widen in shock and a stray tear is shed at the sudden tilt of his head. No hints of sunshine is to be seen past the door and bits of burgundy paint peeling off, so when vile grey light builds a solid wall before their eyes Louis finds it hard to keep his gaze frozen on the man’s fat inept hands.

He buries his nose and chin into the soft skin of Harry’s neck, allowing the lush mess of hair to shield his vision from the vicious beams. Calm drowns him as Harry rearranges his grip and holds him in place with trembling hands and a drained soul. He can’t feel more dependent in this moment.

Without a word they enter the bathroom to obey the man’s silent request. Light presses through the tiny window design and cast a wan gloom over all surfaces within the room and set the bottom of the shiny bathtub alight. He lifts his gaze from Harry’s shoulder, sweeping his gaze over the bland shapes presented before him. Conspicuous bits of nails and gore decorate the sink and black and white chequered tiles and a few strokes of rust burn tawny holes in the tub’s smooth edges. No insects are alive to reign over the floor’s domain.

Despite the man’s abstruse way to speak Louis hears his enraged words clearly.

“Take off your clothes.”

It’s hard to ignore the tremor he feels searing through Harry’s body and the mouthed whimper he spots in the mirror. Despondency consumes the boy’s gleaming verdant eyes as his whole body slackens and more tears roll down his sunken cheeks and his lips part without producing coherent sound.

The man yanks Louis from Harry’s back in wrath and throws him onto the rickety toilet lid and reaches after a small razor discarded by a pair of forgotten toothbrushes on the sink. He cuts up Louis’ shirt and slices the boy’s chest in the frenzied process to undress, leaving minor cuts all over his torso and neck while emitting groans and grunts during the struggle of keeping Louis still and pliant.

Harry bolts away from them in mortification, his eyes blown open and heart champing its way out of his chest as his back hits the gelid solidity of a wall. Hysteria swallows him from within, cutting his breaths cut short and mute. None of his horrors can be voiced. He clasps his arms around his torso and squeezes his eyes shut while sliding down to the floor, seeking protection behind the remains of a burnt hamper. All his muscles tense in preparation for the incoming assault. What frightens him is that he doesn’t hear Louis’ agonized screams.

Louis’ shirt lays shredded underneath the sink in company of the boy’s trousers and ripped underwear. The boy is hidden away from Harry’s view, curled up in the bathtub as icy water trickles down his back and his hands span over his sides to shield himself from the man’s perilous gaze. Everything in Louis’ field of vision is hazy, the water sticking to his lashes and harming his downcast eyes that stays frozen on his naked toes.

Harry screeches when the man yanks him up by the front of his tee, tossing him towards the bathtub as well. He sobs in panic and kicks his legs when hairy arms grab his waist and hoists him up with ease as if he’s merely air, shrieking at the top of his voice. The man wires Harry’s dark locks around his clenched fist in an attempt to tame the teenager. When Harry doesn’t yield his head is smashed into the bathtub.

Fine lines of carmine liquid drip from his scalp and temples to taint the water in the tub with a vile shade of scarlet. It billows down like smoke beneath the surface and paints the filled bath alike tender brushstrokes, soon encompassing Louis’ figure sitting there. Harry hears the invectives shouted at him by the man but can’t decipher them from the other noise in his head. He is held below the surface, inhaling masses of liquid which he splutters on when his head is drawn back up for air before it hits the edge of the tub repeatedly.

All sounds fade in Harry’s ears and become a constant throbbing. Sticky blood obscures his vision and the dirty water and he can’t feel the knife slitting up the back of his tee to rest on his throat. The blade is chillier than the water and cools against his scorching skin. His breathing is laboured, rough as it comes in rasps from his gullet and his head slams into the wall and tub over and over again until he can’t stand on his own. The man chucks him on the floor with a final thrust and he crawls over the edge of the bathtub to spot Louis’ petite form studying the man’s malevolent motions beneath the stream of grimy water.

Harry coughs blood and saliva as he tries to speak, gripping the rusty metal under his palm while trying to wipe away his tears and rid himself from the anguish consuming him. The flowing water bespatters his face like an elusive coat. Light evades the room as clouds cross over the sun outdoors.

The man grabs his legs, growling when Harry lifts a trembling hand to sock him away and displays the knife before the boy’s eyes once more. Harry manages a terrible croak as his clothes are torn to shreds, joining Louis’ in the corner to soak up water from the sink’s broken pipes. He can feel those maltreated hands trace his thighs and slide to graze over his behind and chest, the fingertips carrying the touch of a flame where they feel his skin. Weep is all he can do when his legs are kicked apart and his chin faces the ochre tinted clinker wall in front.

He can’t look at Louis, though he knows that the other’s gaze is fixated on him. He wants to cover up, but his hands are busy gripping the bath’s opposite edge with white aching knuckles and the man’s sordid hands linger on his waist. This bathroom is too small for them.

He’s kicked into the tub and falls in headlong, hitting his head once more with a jarring cry and clings to his surroundings. Next to him sits Louis, immobilized and cautious to move. After spitting on the boys the man leaves, cursing.

Unwitting of the man’s absence Harry curls in on himself, bracing his heart for the hailing fists. Instead he feels something pour over his naked spine – a liquid far more dense and oleaginous than water. From the distressed noises that escape Louis’ lips Harry’s qualms are confirmed. And also the acerbic smell.

The man holds a near empty barrel above their heads, pouring the sickening content over them before tossing the container aside. Gasoline soaks their frail bodies, dribbling down to mix with the revolting water. Louis glances up to where the man stood, now magically dissolved and is nowhere to be seen. No matches or candles to ignite them.

Harry lies in a shaking heap in the other end of the tub, lips parting for desperate breaths that are half water and half air and his face splattered in red flecks caused by screaming and useless lungs. Major gashes adorn his jagged hairline like rose petals. Wild oil-soaked tresses hang before his eyes in a veil and his chest heaves.

Louis swallows his worries, reaching out for the younger boy to soothe and be solaced. Harry flinches with a whimper and buries his head into his thin forearm which moves his body out of reach for Louis and all likelihoods of touch. Dread is written all over his elegant features, any sign of sophistication long gone. Out in the hallway clattering noises are made in a wicked symphony and Louis can differentiate the familiar bang of a chair slammed to the floor, the shattered wooden pieces scattering in a vast area between the kitchen and living room. In a second attempt Louis’ palm settles in a faint touch on Harry’s shoulder.

“Please, don’t touch me,” Harry mouths. Still he won’t sneak a peek to spot the earnest expression of grief and woe Louis bears, equal to his own.

Louis bites his tongue as his hand drops from Harry’s complexion like it’s been charred, holding back his tears. Everything burns; cuts, brain, eyes, joints. Excruciating shudders still course through him from the manhandling earlier. As his eyes dart over Harry’s naked form he retracts his hand in concern and glances to the corridor where their sadist stands and his scornful eyes glow in the dark.

Louis doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the man’s unyielding stare leering at them from the doorway, or the pack of matches between his fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School is over in four days! *cheers violently*  
> Also, this chapter is rather different from the other ones and I don't know yet if that's a good thing or not. Thoughts? :)


	6. Part five

Even with his eyes closed Harry knows that heavy rain pounds against the windows. The noise is deafening. They sit back to back in the living room, he and Louis, with blankets wrapped around their bodies. _Fear Factor_ plays on the TV, but after the screen had flickered on and off for the fourteenth time the man stomped upstairs to search the attic for a solution. Grunts from him are heard above and the floorboards creak to bemoan the circumstances.

Harry sees himself in the fish tank. Patches of white skin poke out from the rags framing him, revealing his upper torso and collarbones. Once he had planned to wear tattoos over most of his body and a large one of some kind would adorn his chest from shoulder to shoulder.

He and Gemma discussed it long ago when he was fourteen and their mother had left them alone for the day. They leaned against Gemma’s bed and watched _Transformers_ when she muted the TV and went to get a refill of their popcorn.

“What kind of tattoo do you want when you grow up?” she asked when she re-entered their room. He said that he wanted to keep his skin just the way it was, clean and smooth, though tanned.

“I want a lyric here,” she said and drew an imaginary circle round her wrist. She was lankier than him even back then, and her wrists appeared dainty. “Something strong, you know,” she continued, “Like ‘you can go your own way’, or ‘I’m not afraid’.” The bucket of popcorn lay forgotten underneath the bed. Its remaining crumbs decorated the floor.

“You could tattoo your eyebrows,” he suggested.

“You could tattoo a penis on your forehead,” she said.

“I’m not getting any tattoos.”

“That’s what they all say.” She pulled up her shirt. Beneath her concealed breast the word _free_ was written in red ink. Harry cursed.

“Does mum know?” he asked.

“Considering I got it done a week and a half ago and she’s been gone three fourths of that time; no. I haven’t gotten a chance to tell her properly.”

“Where did you go?”

“Joan,” she smiled and let the fabric fall back over her ribs. “And if you say a word to mum I’ll decapitate you.”

Shortly after that day Harry found himself spending every night planning and sketching on future tattoos. His attention was locked on one in particular. It was of a single black cross and in that _after the storm_ would be written. The design was crap and the writing even worse but on that night when he sat beneath a heavy comforter in bed on an early Monday morning everything fell in place and he saw his twenty year old self with that print on his shoulder. It all seemed clear to him that night.

Now, as the foretaste of autumn grabs the earth by its grace and tosses it away, the last thing on his mind are tattoos. His sister is not. She has graduated and may be engaged or pregnant. There is no way for him to know. He pictures his mother and sister sat by the kitchen table, a fourth chair standing empty beside them. No one talks or utters a sound. They all enjoy the silence and each other’s company. He wants that comfort again and to know that it’s good enough, that their lives are sufficient.

He draws a cross on his bare shoulder.

“Do you believe in God?” he asks. His deep voice blends in with the crackling TV. Above them the floor continues to creak.

“No,” Louis says. Puffs of air waft against Harry’s cheek from where Louis rests his head on Harry’s shoulder. “You?”

 “Yeah. I think he’s punishing us.”

“You mentioned that before. Why?”

Harry’s eyes flit over the floor. Candy wrappers are scattered around with napkins and blazed cigarettes. Looking at the butts reminds him of where they are and how long they have been here, so he prefers to see with his eyes closed. He doesn’t want to think.

“Because we’re gay. I swear, had I known it’d be this hard I’d never-“ He cries. Louis doesn’t move even when Harry’s body shudders in despair. “I am two seconds from walking into the kitchen, grab a knife, and slit my fucking throat.”

“You’ll leave me alone,” Louis says.

“You could join me.” His voice is thin. Brittle.

“I’m not killing myself.”

“We’re already dead, Louis. The question is how many more weeks of torture you’ll withstand before you break.”

Louis lifts his head from Harry’s shoulder.

“I have a life beyond this, a family, and I won’t give them up for nothing which will be the case if I commit.”

“Alright,” Harry says. He licks his lips and moves around Louis. His legs drag behind. “But sooner or later he’s gonna snap, and when he does there won’t be anything left to wait for. Who knows, he might even pay them a visit. It’s better to end it now. Escape the pain.”

“Fuck you.”

“You know I’m not the bad guy-“

“You’re persuading me to kill myself.”

“Okay, so I’m a little bad. But is that idea so wrong?”

Tears stain Harry’s face, fresh and glistening. Emptiness fills his eyes.

“Don’t,” Louis murmurs. He cups Harry’s cheek and thumbs the younger’s mouth. Not even a good clean-up can get rid of the blood there. He thinks about what Harry said a few months back, how he didn’t want to see himself anymore; too afraid of what he’d be staring at. He might agree.

Harry moves from Louis’ touch, staring down at the maroon blanket that barely covers his legs. The man threw clothes at them after they washed the gasoline off their bodies. Large, gory attires that both boys refused to wear, and when they refused he tossed the two back into the basement while muttering curses about slicing and carving and heads on sticks. Despite the scent of decay they have Harry begins to consider putting them on.

“I don’t want to die,” he says. “I just want it to end.”

Louis’ eyes are lidded by lassitude and his skin is soft in the amber lights. His fingers itch to reach out. Enraged steps come down the jarring staircase, accompanied by the familiar snorts and grunts.

“Please don’t leave me here,” he whispers.

“I’m not leaving you-“

“And stop thinking that God is the one behind our misery. It was a horrendous inconvenience.”

Harry smiles. “First you forbid my suicide and now I can’t talk about God? Calling faith an ‘inconvenience’? Is that what-”

Louis hits him. Blood begins to trickle from Harry’s mouth and gather in tiny puddles on the floor as he whimpers. Louis realizes that his cuts are torn open. Harry sits hunched over when the man enters the room, trying to pinch his split skin back together while his hands tremble. It’s mostly from shock, Louis hopes.

He glances over at the man. A solid hammer is grasped in his hand and his burn through Harry’s gaunt spine which has been revealed by the loss of a blanket. Harry hasn’t noticed the third party and cries, covering his mouth to muffle the sound. The man lifts his hammer high above them. Images of death flash through Louis’ brain but he’s not given a minute to feel their skulls crack. The TV screen shatters at the blow and the crackling sound die out. Louis holds his arms braced over him and Harry, who now stares at the debacle with red eyes and burkes his sobs.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispers.

Sharp noise echo in their minds from the crushed glass beneath the man’s soles where he stomps around, clearly not done with his rampage. He isn’t wearing anything on his feet. Shards dig into his skin and he curses, kicks at the TV stand and throws a lamp across the room. It breaks one of the morbid black and white photographs he’s moved out from his bedroom.

Everything has fallen to pieces around him when he faces the fish tank. He turns to the boys on the floor and glower. His fists are like stone by his sides. He leaves the living room behind him in a rumble and stomps through the hallway without another word.

Louis’ arms fall to the floor. They ache and sting from lack of care. He moves closer to Harry, listening for more sounds to come, and combs a hand through the boy’s tangled hair.

“Don’t say stuff like that,” he says. “You can’t kill yourself. Don’t leave me alone here.” His fingers snake beneath Harry’s chin and tilts it up. It’s coated in blood. “This looks awful. We should find something to stitch you up with.”

Harry places a chilly hand on his thigh before he can stand and wraps the blanket tighter around himself.

“It’ll heal eventually, won’t it? You don’t have to go anywhere.” His tone is imploring and his grip lax. Louis settles opposite him again.

Daunting steps thunder towards them and Louis looks up to face the barrel of a gun pointing towards them. For once the man grins; a vile expression that has Louis’ stomach churning. Callous is his gaze.

“It makes me happy that you’re back, Cheshire,” he mutters in wry amusement. He lets the gun fall to his side and kneels before them, grabbing Harry’s jaw and yanking it up into the mottled kitchen fluorescence. He squeezes Harry’s throat.

Harry’s fingers slip from Louis’ skin and wind around the man’s bulbous wrist to snatch it away for air. Smothered cries escape his throat when the man’s hand digs into his whitening skin. The man grabs a fistful of Harry’s curls and wires the tresses around his hand. He shakes Harry by the throat until strangled splutters are heard and Harry’s bloody chin is mostly spit and mucus.

When Harry continues to squirm the man lets go of his locks and slams his head into the broken table top next to them. It shatters like the rest of the room with an echo through Louis’ brain. It’s like life flickers before his eyes, he can’t move or think. He listens, eyes closed.

Louis is frozen as Harry’s wheezes become scarce and quiet. A screech tears through the living room. Once Louis glances over he sees the man straddling Harry, pressing all his weight on the boy’s chest and legs to keep him still. His fingers pry the wounds open again and the skin splits further up Harry’s cheek than it ever has before. Fresh tears gleam on the boy’s cheeks.

The man stands and leaves Harry gagging on the floor. There is nothing in his eyes as he picks up the gun and twirls it between his fingers. Not even spite.

Louis crawls over to Harry, wrapping the blanket around him into a loose chrysalis and wipes away the gore from his body. Sweat shine on Harry’s forehead. Louis moves away the sticky hair from the area and his gaze flicker down to the crisscrossed handprints marking Harry’s throat.

“Can’t breathe,” Harry mouths.

“Just focus for me. Deep breaths.”

“Can’t.”

Harry’s gaze would be toxic if his eyes weren’t wet and entreating. His skin is pallid. In the kitchen light Louis can see the man’s shadow grow on Harry’s airless form as he nears. With an offhand kick to the ribs Louis is out of the way and the man hands a sharp slap to Harry’s face. Blood trickles down between the floorboards from Harry’s open mouth, feeding the insects down under.

Louis hoists himself up on all fours from where he has fallen. The man grasps the gun with white knuckles and Louis curses the lost opportunity. Had his mind been quicker there would be a two hundred fifty pounds corpse on the floor with a bullet in his brain and he and Harry would be dashing through the rye outside.

“Not him,” Louis croaks. “Don’t take him.” His voice is thick.

The man’s square head pivots to Louis before he lifts Harry by the arm and goes over to stomp down Louis on the floor again.

“Hush, pink meat,” he says.

He can’t reason with this psycho.

“Leave him be. Don’t touch him.” Louis’ pulse quickens when a sizzling pain blooms from his ribs where the recent kick landed. He groans and clutches his chest. “You can’t take him away from me!”

The man drags Harry over the floor. Too out of it to act, he reaches for Louis and the furniture they pass in hope to grab something. The gun is pressed against his hand in the man’s grasp. His eyes blow wide.

Harry kicks and cries during the assault, and the more Louis watches the struggle the more immobile he becomes, the colder his bones get. Desperate calls are stifled to the point of incoherence once they disappear out of sight. Pain keeps Louis motionless on the floor and he tries to crawl forward in belief that if he gets there in time he-

Four quick bangs go off. A fifth is heard shortly after. No echo follows.

Louis gasps and falls onto the floor, twisting to ease his pain. The horizontal boards above him are black like the skies outside and with their ragged edges and gaping holes they look like his ribs feel. His heartbeat calms to the point where he can’t hear it thud in his ears anymore. With that gone he can hold on to nothing but the patter of rain against broken glass. It’s windy outside.

Cold spreads down his body from where his reddened cheek rubs against the floor and past his barely concealed torso to cool his toes. Glass from the TV lie scattered around his pained form, and if he rolls over on the side a shard is sure to pierce his skin. He weeps.

The man trots out from the kitchen and stops in the middle of the room so Louis lies by his feet, then turns and makes his way upstairs. An everlasting war cry creak from the stairs. It rings in Louis’ ears long after the silence returns to reign in the beat of a murderer clomping around one floor above. Outside the storm picks up.

Louis doesn’t move until the throbbing of his ribs dissipates like smoke from a ventilated room. His skin is sticky and bruised, coated in fluids and muck. He sits up, holding his being together in a solitary embrace and glances into the visible part of the kitchen. Harry’s naked feet and calves lie there, still and bleak, surely like the rest of his body. Death has left the building.

Amber light reflects from one of the shards on the floor but Louis barely gives it a second glance. His eyes are transfixed on Harry toes, slanted towards the ceiling and white like the oncoming winter. They were supposed to make it out. Harry had told him that. Up until the point where Harry complemented beheading himself they were fine. Hopeful.

With a heavy head Louis looks at the destruction around him, at the pictures of women and strollers, a game of croquet, a man who tips his hat in greeting. All are black and white. The TV has become a place for puppetry without the grand curtains to seal the show. The bare cords running along the wall from behind are rat bitten and hang from their cable clips. Splinters from the armchair and sofa mix with the glass and the wrecked table, blunt in abundance. The only thing whole in the room is the grimy tank with a layer of moss on the glass.

Whether it’s night or day is unclear to Louis. No clocks sit on the walls to inform him and the sun is lost in rain and melancholy. He moves to slump against the wall opposite the TV, hugging himself and weeping in the silence trapping him.

He wants to call out, to know that he isn’t alone, that there is a chance they’ll go through with their master plan, but there is still a man with a loaded gun upstairs, and the fear of hearing no one call back overpowers his soul completely.

So he cries in the dark, wondering when things started to go downhill for him, for Harry, how people back home are feeling, if his sisters look the same. He wonders if they’ve given up the search by now, after spring and summer have passed without a trace of their missing boys.

And when thinking becomes too much he stands. Leaves begin to stick to the windows and cover up the world outside. It’s like he’s trapped in a box.

The fluorescent lights flicker on and off in the kitchen. Louis grabs the doorframe where hinges should be poking out and closes his eyes. His fervent pulse is back and so is the insufferable nausea that bubbles in his gut, willing him to retch and double over. Everything spins. Quakes rattle through him and the floor disappears beneath his feet. Before he falls he grabs the doorframe with both hands, sliding down along it until he sits in a heap, forehead pressed against the chilled wall.

From the corner of his eye he sees Harry when his gaze fleet over the blurred room. Tears still glisten on the boy’s cheek and in between the bursts of rain outside Louis imagines the dripping of Harry’s blood where it paints the floor.

Louis crawls over and hits the wall behind as he leans. He rearranges Harry’s curls to the side with a light stroke, his hand hovering over the sordid cuts. A lump is stuck in his throat. He can’t utter a single sound besides frail whimpers and sniffles. His fingers ghost over Harry’s crimson lips and with a shudder they dip into the blood gathered in a dip above his chin.

Louis breaks into sobs and presses back against the wall. His gaze travel from Harry’s throat to his lips, to his fluttering eyelids and the glimpse of tired eyes beneath.

Harry regards him. He slides his hand into Louis’ trembling one and squeezes, watching the other cry. He tries to focus on the features of Louis’ face as his squeeze is returned.

“I’m not supposed to move,” he whispers in a slow exhale. Louis isn’t sure if it’s meant to be an apology.

“The shots…” Louis’ pitch breaks and he covers his mouth, wiping at his eyes.

“I had my eyes closed, didn’t see what happened. I’m sorry, Lou.”

A miserable cry sounds deep in Louis’ throat. “I thought you wanted to die.”

He cups Harry’s cheek and the blood smudges out under his touch. Harry shakes his head.

“Not like this,” he murmurs. He grasps Louis’ wrist, moving away the hand on his cheek and moistens his chapped lips. He should have said something.

Louis tugs Harry into a hug and his fingers and nails dig into Harry’s skin to hold on. He puts his head on Harry’s bony shoulder, inhaling the soothing scent, and shuffle forward so they lean against the still intact kitchen table. Rain falls on his skin. When he throws a glance up he sees the jagged glass sitting like a web in the window frame. He holds Harry tighter.

“Sorry, I-“

“Don’t speak for a while,” Louis murmurs. In between the woe and surprise he’s consumed by emptiness he can’t prevent. All pain brings him a sense of relief. It proves that he can still feel, that something keeps him grounded. It’s once he becomes numb during the torture there will be nothing left to hold onto. The storm subsides gradually outside and alters into a light downfall like the one of a late summer evening, though Louis is not tricked by the change. He leans back for a second, searching Harry’s face for any sense of discomfort or ache. When he finds none he slumps again and draws his own comfort from the other body with a yet beating heart, the one that rubs his back with a broad hand and lethargic motions.

“You smell like shit,” he whispers. A light puff of air hits Louis’ neck at Harry’s faint snort, but he doesn’t speak. Harry’s skin has soaked up all of Louis’ tears. The torn blanket lays scrunched between their bodies.

“Don’t leave me.” It’s soft and barely uttered.

His embrace loosen around Harry as he pulls back, wiping his cheeks dry and adjusting his own blanket. His fingers drag over Harry’s jaw as if in a haze.

Harry’s eyes are similar to wet grass, soft and inviting. The blemishes and cuts disappear and Louis swears he sees a glimpse of a once happy little boy, one who was fearless and affectionate, one who clung to his mother’s legs and yanked his sister’s hair. In comparison to their forlorn surroundings he glows.

Louis blinks, his touch falling away from Harry’s skin as his palm drops into his lap. He swallows and tugs the blanket tighter so it’s like rope restraining him.

“Do you want me to fetch you some clothes?” he asks. “I’m sure a few garments still lay in the basement.” Louis stands and shivers. Wind creeps into the kitchen, licking the walls and ruffling Harry’s hair. It’s grown long. Louis thinks it will soon reach his shoulders; another six months and the use of scrunchies will be inevitable.

“No, I’m fine,” Harry says.

“I was gonna grab some for me, so…” Louis shrugs, throwing a glance to the living room and hallway. His thoughts begin to jumble together again. He watches Harry who bites his nails while his nimble fingers pinch and tug at his skin, keeping his gaze on the gaps in the floor. “It won’t be a bother.”

“You go.” Harry’s voice is absent.

“Or I can sit here-“

“It’s best if you stay away till he comes back. I’m not supposed to move.”

Louis nods. “Right.” He leaves the room with quiet steps.

On his way to the cellar he stops by the front door with a sigh. Is it locked? He doesn’t know, and that’s for the best. Last time they tried to sneak out they got boiling water poured over them and weren’t fed for a week and a half. The time before that they were hung to the ceiling and whipped for hours. Louis stares at the material with longing and dread, his heart beating fast. When he attempts to turn the handle the door is proven to be locked and solid. He can’t say it was unexpected.

 

Louis’ dream of bloody faces and decapitated heads vanishes when Harry rouses him. He doesn’t bother to wipe the sweat from his forehead and instead laces his fingers with the boy.

“I found food,” Harry murmurs. Though silent his tone holds excitement. He bounces on the floor. Those words shake Louis awake and he nearly smiles, grasping his stomach to keep it from roaring. It’s been a while.

“Down here?” he asks. Harry helps him up

“No, kitchen of course. He’s passed out in the hallway – left the door open and all. Look.” Louis glances to the ceiling. It is in fact wide open and in the strips of light he sees dust float in lots. Harry continues once Louis stands and tugs him towards the sad excuse of a ladder. “Just don’t be disappointed when it’s proven to be something other than entrecote.” He drops Louis’ hand and begins to climb. The bland sweatshirt hangs like a sheet on him with a yellow sawmill logo covering most of the back.

“You’re accusing me of pickiness?” Louis lowers his voice as he sees Harry throw glances out to the hall where the man is said to lie. He follows shortly behind. Every piece of clothing he wears has bloodstains and is tailored for a giant. They’re worse than Harry’s collection. Harry seized the smaller sizes at the mere sight of their attire and claimed the pair of shorts that were remotely close to normal. Louis doesn’t think about where they come from.

“I am not accusing you of anything,” Harry says. A genuine smile is hinted on his lips when Louis peeks up at the floor and down the corridor. He glimpses the man’s feet in the doorway and hears snores that rattle windows and photographs on the walls. They stand up and stop for a moment. Something like elation flickers by in Harry’s eyes.

“Neither of us has seen it for long so I just figured if you’d forgotten what’s on the menu I’d tell you that it isn’t entrecote. Or filet mignon. God, mum used to make the greatest filet mignon. You should try it sometime.”

Louis freezes but Harry doesn’t react to his words. He waits for a reply and a sign to go forth for lunch, nibbling on his lip.

“That would be great, Harry,” Louis says. Their fingers slot together again. “We should go before he awakes.”

Harry nods and squeezes Louis’ hand. He looks like a child. “Yeah, yeah, come on.”

They traipse along the house’s walls on the verge of falling every other step until they stand stiff in the kitchen doorway. On the table lies an immense clump of meat that is larger than Louis’ head, with a handle sticking up from the middle where a knife must be buried. Its juices stain the rotten wood. Louis only has eyes for its shimmer and the maroon core.

Harry pats his back. “What did I say?” He doesn’t bother with a chair and instead kneels before the piece, beginning to tear it apart with his fingers. Its texture is rubbery.

“It’s raw, we can’t eat that,” Louis says.

Harry faces him with a grin and gives him a handful of their lunch. “We have to. Now c’mon, I’m starving.”

Louis accepts the piece. He twists it in his hand, glancing at Harry and listening to the way he moans between bites. The sounds echo in the room. Louis tears a tiny bit from the edge of his piece. He stops himself from sniffing it and drops it onto his tongue. It tastes like burnt rubber. Once that initial taste vanishes he recognizes the thing as food, and from there he stuffs as much as he can into his mouth.

He falls down next to Harry and claws at the meat with his jagged nails. Snores still sound from the hall. They share the remaining mass and revel in it. Neither want to go hungry another moment. Louis mumbles praises to a lost God while they eat. Harry grins and chuckles. With the way they behave Louis would feel if he wasn’t participating in the activity.

When all food is gone they slump to the floor in a heap of greasy smiles. Louis is content for the first time since he left home. It feels safe to lie next to Harry.

“I think there’s more in the sack,” Harry pants.

“What?”

“There, on the sink.” He points.

A tight lump of russet fabric tower from the bench, filled with what Louis prays is more food. His stomach tightens and he feels nausea well over him at the thought of all he can eat, but it’s overpowered by the urge to feed, to not starve.

“Okay. Give me a second.”

Harry nods, patting his back once again. Louis takes a moment to breathe and listen. Nothing but the snores sound in the house. Not even the usual scraping of rats running inside the walls or the creaks of doors as wind attacks the hovel. With a sturdy grip on the sink he pulls himself up.

The sack is packed with meat, and the stench that hits him is enough to knock him out. He groans, turning to look at Harry who stares with a raised brow. _What?_ Louis keeps his head turned away and reaches inside. His palm slips against the flesh. Bits of it stick to his skin, like only crumbs lay inside. It’s hard to grasp. Finally his hand can close around a small oval piece, and with a sigh he pulls it out.

In his palm rests a bloody ear, the lobe ripped to shreds and dirt etched into the tangerine skin. Death prickles his nostrils and the stench becomes understandable. He doesn’t move from where he stands. A limb from another being is in his hand, ripped from its owner. This brings his focus back to the sack. Sobs spill from his lips and block his throat as he peeks into the container with fearful eyes. There is no need for sight when the smell is here.

“Is it logs?” Harry asks.

The ear slips from Louis’ palm. He doesn’t hear it hit the floor. The world spins and twists before his eyes and corpses pile in the corners of the room like extensive furniture. Faces of relatives and friends blend into the mix. He can’t breathe; the food fights its way out of his guts. He falls to the floor, doubles over and retches until only strings of saliva are left to drip and his throat is dry as sandpaper. He keeps retching.

Somewhere in between the cries and heaves he hyperventilates. Not enough air presses in and out of his lungs and he can’t stop gagging long enough to breathe. Harry pulls him in once the saliva strings thin out as well. Louis kicks and tries to see past the fuzzy lines, gasping and shaking his head. Spit is slathered down his chin.

Harry clamps a hand over Louis’ mouth. “Hush, hush. Be quiet, easy now.” His tone is strained, and Louis knows that they’re both crying. This doesn’t help his situation. The ear lies only feet away, rotten and with flies attacking it now that it’s out in the open and up for grabs.

“You’re going to wake him, shut up,” Harry hisses. Louis’ tears trickle down his hand and the struggle ceases. He lets up the grip on Louis’ mouth. They sit back against the wall, tangled together with laboured breaths. Harry covers Louis’ eyes, eyeing the limb in revulsion as his arms brace around the boy. The dead scent invades the entire floor. It lingers to the walls and floor and makes everything reek and imprints itself in both their minds.

Louis’ breaths turn frequent after a while. When he faces Harry it’s like looking into a mirror. Their red eyes are identical, blood still smeared along their jawlines and skin pallid. Lumps gather in Louis’ chest, oozing through his veins to the point where he thinks he has blacked out, but Harry’s embrace doesn’t loosen enough for him to float. He tries not to inhale.

“Save your voice, alright?” Harry mumbles into his clammy hair. “Don’t think about it for now. Just calm down, Louis. We’ll run away and forget, and then you can grieve. Don’t cry, please. We’ll get through this.”

Louis forms incoherent words that all twist into a yowl against Harry’s chest. Questions swirl around in his chaotic mind. The edges of his vision blacken and a beep echoes. It comes again and again until it alone creates a symphony and constant beeping like the drop on a heart monitor. He wishes to be buried six feet under. Anywhere but here. Nothing else matters.

“I touched it,” Louis sobs. “We ate them-“

Harry hushes him again and pulls him tighter in. Several knives glimmer in their holders on the sink, behind the sack of dismembered corpses. He wonders which one of them was used to sever the bodies, which one killed them in the first place. All of them, probably.

Louis stands and stumbles away from Harry’s lap, his escape falling short when he drops to the living room floor. There he gags. Harry calls for him to quiet down, that they shouldn’t be up and running on this floor. Louis continues when the snores stop and clamps towards him, and doesn’t stop until he’s beaten unconscious.

 

When he comes to they’re outside in the white sunshine, on the gravelled driveway. Screams echo in the vast like bullets. His hands are tied and feet numb, his gaze turned down to his bloody attire. The ground is icy beneath his scraped knees. It’s hard to see through the mist, but further up the driveway, by the double doors of a giant garage, stand two figures. Harry is on his knees as well, tied from throat to ankles, and he screams. The man’s shadow tower him.

In front of the two stands a huge iron bucket. The man fists Harry’s curls and pushes his face into the container for a moment before yanking it back, repeating. Water glimmers on Harry’s body every time he comes up for air. His skin is irate with rashes all over, as if from working out on a hot day. The man picks up a second bucket, this one smaller, and pours its content all over the tied boy on the ground. Another scream echoes.

Louis’ wrists chafe against the rope as he moves. Panic settles inside him again and his throat itches to call out for help. The only thing around them is the rotten house, plains and an enormous forest the stretch on for miles without opening up to civilization. Who will listen?

An on-going scream silences when the man thrusts Harry’s head below water again and holds still for a beat too long. Harry gasps and falls back onto the gravel, his right cheek and elbow taking most of the fall. Louis falls in the same moment. He crawls up the hill with short, drained motions to reach his friend. His chest is tight and the air moist.

A hand grabs his neck and yanks him up into the air. He hangs less than an inch from the man’s face, petrified and repulsed.

“Obedience,” the man jeers. Spit latches onto Louis’ face. Harry lies mere feet away, blinking at them and panting. The man throws Louis to the ground and grasps his foot, dragging him over the driveway to the closed garage. “I’m gonna cut up your mummy from cunt to nose.” He kicks the doors open.

Inside stands a sturdy table in the middle of the concrete floor. The walls are decorated with whips, chains, pliers, saws and wires of varying material. A bare light bulb dingles back and forth above the table. Everything is tidy and sleek, and if the room wasn’t packed with torture devices it would fit in an IKEA catalogue. From the sides of the table hang two pair of rusty handcuffs.

The man seizes one of many buckets on his way inside the building where he tosses Louis up on the table. While Louis tries to understand his surroundings the man walks out into the cool air and fetches Harry. The man drops him in the corner with a kick to his head. Louis attempts to roll onto the floor and crawl when his lungs contract and he gasps for air. Below him stands the odd bucket with heavy fumes rising, colour identical to the mist around.

The man rolls him over on his chest and holds him in place, placing the bucket on the floor by his face. Stings prickle in his throat like it’s cigarette smoke and he coughs, trying to rid himself from it. His wrists bleed as he struggles. The open fields aren’t even a wall away. The six foot psychopath regarding them from the doorway is the only thing stopping him from grabbing Harry and run.

Louis is sure he’s gone blind. Everything dances before him in black and white shapes though his eyes are wide open and it feels like they’re bleeding. In the haze he sees his sisters, decapitated, with their heads on sticks they hold. They stand in the white without moving, without listening to his pleads for air. His throat swells the more he tries to shout and blood pumps in his ears like jet engines. When they don’t hear his voice they turn away and walk into the black, dropping their heads as they go.

Someone kicks down the bucket. Louis’ inner ghosts vanish and the world falls into his vision again. His chin hits the edge of the table and he splutters blood, blinking to see what’s before him. Harry lies on the dead grass outside. He coughs and his skin is powder blue, even with the gloomy nature surrounding him. Vomit stains his clothes.

The man snatches Louis’ chin up and spits in the boy’s face. He shoves Louis onto the floor and kicks the bucket once more. The clouds slip away on the sky above. A white heat flushes Louis’ body and he screams out in agony. He can breathe again.

He crawls out of the garage and his palms slide against the wet stones. His body is numb but his insides burn, fuelling his terror. He’ll grab Harry and run. They’ll hide in the woods, wait out the storm between the trees. They can’t lose.

The man strides past Louis and crouches by Harry’s side. A knife sits in his waistband. He cups Harry’s cheek and wipes the bile from his skin, pouring clean water over his cuts. With pants and gulps Harry swallows. Dirt and grass dribbles down on the ground. The man dips his fat thumb into Harry’s mouth and yanks down, opening the cuts once again. The water stings and chokes Harry but he can’t fight back. He’s tired from heaving and his head pounds where he was kicked.

Just when stars thunder before his eyes the man lets him go and falls into the mud again, wheezing and crying. Evening chills bite his bare feet. He shivers and flops onto his back. The man is already gone from his side. Harry finds him stomping up to the garage again where Louis lies on the verge of outdoors, a pool of drool from his mouth and his body lax. The man yanks at Louis’ arm and lifts him from the ground. His head lolls forward.

The man carries both boys inside after locking the garage with the buckets safe inside. He dumps them in his bedroom and slams the door shut as he leaves. The click of the lock rouses Harry to his senses again.

The room hasn’t changed. During the months passed since he last was in here the only thing different are the walls. More photographs overlap one another, picturing small children playing in a sandbox, their shadows long and frail in the afternoon sunshine, photos of majestic buildings and people with umbrellas making their way to work on the street below, a dusty ceiling light and a framed arm hanging over a fireplace. The photographs cover the entire walls and the original wallpaper.

Clatter sounds from the kitchen and when he hears sizzling Harry knows that dinner is on its way. His stomach churns at the thought of feeding again after having his throat ripped apart. It smells heavenly. Louis’ quiet breaths fill his ears.

Louis lies behind Harry in the damp sheets. Drool is smeared over his lips and his mouth is agape. At least he isn’t covered in spew. Harry tucks the sheets over Louis’ frozen feet and uses a torn pillow to soak up the drool. He strips himself of his reeking clothes and veils his body form the cold. Winter means sleepless nights and frost. He wonders if the water will freeze in the basement during this time and if the cold will be their death before they can be executed.

He shakes his sweater. Drops of bile scatter and stick to the photographs. He drags the garment against the door to clean off the rest before slipping it on again. Even a vomit immersed sweater is better than nudity. He’ll take whatever he can have.

He slips his hands beneath Louis’ shirt and winces at the feel arctic skin against his. He removes the clothing until Louis is bare and shakes those too. The underwear can stay. He hangs each piece of clothing on the hooks in the ceiling to dry. They’re soggy to wear. Louis doesn’t move even when Harry rolls him in under the sheets and duvet, trying to wrap the fabrics around him tight enough for warmth.

The door swings open. Harry glances to Louis’ unconscious figure and gives it a last once-over before he walks out. No one waits in the hallway. He follows the sweet scent of honey and meat to the kitchen, stumbling forth on stiff legs.

On entering the hall he stops. A shelf holds up the staircase containing books with strange titles and stuffed birds. The books are organized in alphabetic order. A stands first, and then comes C and D. A cranium stands in B’s spot, its entire jaw gone. Small stick figures with potato heads fill up the space between each new letter. They stand in groups all the way down to P where the pattern ends with the last two. One of them has tiny wrinkled blueberries for eyes and the other moss for hair. With chills he leaves the room, entering the kitchen.

The man sits on the middle chair. On the table stand three plates and a tray of golden potatoes and medium steaks. Two decanters of beer and milk complete the picture.

Harry stares at where the sack of human remains lay. This time the sink is dirty, and beneath a steady stream of tap water lays bits and pieces of hands and a torso. Harry spots a few teeth and nails trying to go down the drain. Splattered blood has stilled in long streaks on the wall above the stove and sparkle like diamonds beneath the ashen light.

He takes his seat next to the man in silence and hides his hands in the giant sleeves of his sweater. His stomach rumbles. The man takes no note of him as he stacks five steaks on his plate and rolls potatoes on top of the meat hill and a pumpkin sauce. Harry fumbles after his cutlery. When he looks down there is none for him to grab there. The man loads a single steak onto his plate and throws a few potatoes on the side.

Together they eat in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has it been over a month? Indeed it has. In this quick note I just want to tell you that I'm somehow working on a second project alongside this one and this second project takes more time than I had initially thought. What can I say? I'm a time-optimist. (My goal is to post this project before it starts to snow.) Three fourths of this fic are done and I will give my thanks and cry after the epilogue is written which is still quite a journey away. Still, thank you who are reading this, or commenting, or leaving kudos or bookmarking it. I'll try to hurry with part six :)


	7. Part six

There are no doors on the top floor, excluding the minimal piece of wood swinging back and forth on a single hinge cracked in two. As the wind blows through holes in the wood it sounds like a hundred whispers from deceased owners of the shack. The attic still has three separate rooms. Nothing stands up there to decorate the desolate waste of space. The only thing is a broad trunk, rusted with a broken lock hanging, meant to contain the secrets within. No insects or rats creep in the walls up here.

Harry drags his fingertips over the dusty windowsills, gazing out at the grey skies. Snow falls through the gaps in the ceiling and bespatters the floor in white. His hand is coated in a thin layer. Behind him the stairs creak and he turns to see Louis’ face show in the doorway. His clothes are clean and the usual flecks of blood are nowhere to be found; in this light his skin is soft. It’s strange to see him so whole.

They don’t talk to each other. Louis takes a seat in the window and stares at the faraway forest, humming a silent melody. Harry picks up his sweet scent. It’s like he took a bath just moments ago. His hair is fuzzy.

“Don’t you look handsome this evening,” Harry says. “And you smell fresh.”

Louis twists to gaze at him, cheeks tinted in red.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. He traces his fingers over Harry’s mouth so that they only just touch and draws a line up Harry’s jaw before letting his hand drop. “You look better. I think it’s starting to heal.”

“I still look like the Joker. Now and forever.”

Louis cocks his head and slips his fingers between Harry’s. Long cuts reveal themselves in Harry’s palm from the numerous assaults he has tried to protect them both from. These drag against Louis’ dry one so that he feels every rag and bump. A huge gash splits Harry’s upper arm, and where muscles once protruded is now flat skin. Louis lays his hand on the boy’s bicep.

“We’ll find a doctor who can fix that for you and you can cover up with foundation-“

Harry shakes his head. “That’s not for you to worry about, Lou. I can consult with Gemma about the make-up department.” He takes a step back and they part. Other areas of the attic demand his attention. It’s another hour or two until the man comes home, reeking of booze and blood, and he expects to find them lax in the cellar; not up here, disobedient and exploring.

Louis glances out at the snowfall. He pulls the shirt tighter around him and tucks it over his legs, clasping his hands over his ankles. Harry moves over the floorboards like he floats, undetected in silence. Warmth wells over Louis at the sight and a smile ghosts over his chapped lips. Only Harry brings him peace these days, whether it’s with an embrace or a sense of intimacy. Often a glance is enough.

The floor groans when Harry steps over the threshold to a second room and strokes mould from the doorframe, shaking his hand free of it before he proceeds. No wicked shadows stretch over the floor; no man is up here to berate and abuse them; no wind howls through the house. Louis drops his leg and draws circles on the floor with his toes.

“Where does ‘Lou’ come from?” he says, watching Harry stand from where he crouches by the mysterious trunk. Different to himself, dirt colours Harry’s face and sweat runs from those oily curls and paints his face in a riverbank. Snowflakes melt on his shoulders. He makes his way over to lean against the wall next to Louis. It pictures a bad scene from a chick flick where the bad boy in leather saunters up to the girl’s locker with a cigarette hanging out his mouth. The resemblance lightens Louis’ heart. For a moment it’s all normal.

Harry looks at Louis’ dangling foot, his imaginary cigarette dropping to fizzle out beneath his shoe. “I figured we were past first-name basis,” he says. He gains Louis’ attention with a finger stroking up the boy’s throat. Light moves over his features and lips. “Do you think I’ll look as good as you if I wash and clean up?”

“Stop,” Louis says, pushing away Harry’s hand and tucks his leg back beneath the paint stained tee. “It’s embarrassing.”

“But it’s not.” Harry folds down a lock behind Louis’ ear. He brushes his knuckles against Louis’ cheek in the withdrawal of his hand. Steamy breaths turn shallow as Louis’ lips fall apart at the touch and he stares into the green eyes there.

“Stop,” he says, his voice small. Harry thumbs at Louis’ lips and closes them, stepping back to study the third room with a flat gait. A red lamp stands on the table in there next to a basin and two pliers. In the ceiling hang monochrome photographs. Louis rubs his hands together and puffs a breath onto them, placing his heated palms on his chest and looks away. Just a glass holds him form the world of joy and freedom he once knew. If he breaks the window parts still stuck he can fly away. Maybe he’ll make the jump.

A soft waft of wind sings through the room and makes his teeth clatter. It means well, but if winter lasts any longer his toes will fall off.

“My balls are blue over here, how can you sit by the window like that?” Harry says. He takes distance from Louis, standing in the middle of the silent snowfall amidst the room, his arms crossed and his shoulders pulled to his neck. Louis hesitates to take his eyes off the slumbering fields and devote his attention to Harry. When he faces the room it’s with soft eyes.

“It’s a beautiful view of freedom, Styles,” he murmurs before turning back.

Harry licks at his lips, swaying back and forth with the breeze flowing through the house, clawing lethal wounds in their skin. Red marks bloom all over him where the sweater stoops too low or the shorts down cover his thighs. Yet he doesn’t shiver. He stares into the back of Louis’ head, where the baby hair thrives. His heart makes too much noise in his chest and snow wipes him clean of the dirt on his cheeks.

“It sure is,” he says. He sees those same irate marks all over Louis’ body and long to reach out and warm him up. What he does now is dangerous, that doesn’t come as a surprise to him. There isn’t enough time for the two of them.

The weather makes him dizzy, his injuries bleed out with darkness in his mind and the lack of food exhausts him. Yet he smiles when hearing Louis hum again and tap his fingers against the window frame. The sounds of whips and screams echo in his mind. He joins Louis again.

“I think it’s Christmas,” Louis says.

“What makes you say that?”

Louis rubs his face and sighs. His irises shine pale frost, like the broadening snowflakes that wipe the remains of prosper from Earth and embed them in famine. At the thought of a proper Christmas dinner with his family gathered round the table nausea overwhelms him. He could sit at home now, his sisters next to him by their crackling fireplace. Or lie in his bed beneath a heated lamp reading new comics he received.

“You know,” he says, slipping down from the window, “a feeling.” When his feet touch the floor chills shoot through him. The boards are colder than he presumed.

Harry squeezes his shoulder and pulls him in for a brief moment, resting his head against Louis’.

“Were you singing Christmas carols earlier?” he says.

“Not singing, humming.”

“Care to sing one then?”

Louis pushes up from Harry’s side and yanks his shirt over his thighs. Large shorts billow from his legs but he feels naked in the cold. “Can we be quiet for a while?”

Harry nods. With muted movements Louis slides up to perch in the window again and breathes heat into his hands. Life is cold and elusive. It doesn’t help to brood over whether or not they’ll be home to see the first flowers pop out of the ice, Harry knows that. Though many things have vaporised from his head these months he knows that. Willpower isn’t enough to survive anymore. He doesn’t know what else he’s got.

He tiptoes over the floor to the trunk again to leave Louis peace. The box contains cutlery rusted beyond use, broken cameras of various year models, a sooty pacifier and rope. He picks up the pacifier for assessing and wipes the soot from the bottom. It clicks in his head. The taped cries of an infant they awake to during the darkest hours in the cellar, when the door in the ceiling blocks every sliver of light. He looks back to Louis who sits unwitting and buries the pacifier deep down in the lumber, closing the lid and fits the lock back in place. It hangs loose like before, with nagged edges and scratches on its body.

Black contours of light frames Louis where he stands in front of the window, hugging himself. It drapes over and around him and billows from his shoulders. Hair rises from his skin. His gaze stays locked on the snow as Harry approaches.

Harry eases his arms around Louis’ waist until they curl around the boy’s lissom body. Louis twists around to return the gesture. They sway a while with feet glued to the rotten floor and Harry hums O Come All Ye Faithful. The feeling of joy and health buzzes around them but neither can feel the sentiment root in their souls. Harry relaxes as he breathes the sweet aromas and empties his mind.

“Louis?” he says.

There comes a hum that warms his throat where Louis’ head rests. His fingers curl into the fabric braced over Louis’ back and feels the knots of his spine beneath.

“You are a good person,” he says. “Truly.” Their swaying ceases, and as they stand in the attic breathing the faraway festivities Louis relaxes, all qualms he bears seep into Harry’s skin with the single breath he exhales. He picks up his head and meets Harry’s soft gaze. He steps away in the embrace to feel the shirt strain over his back where nimble fingers grip at his sides.

Harry tightens his jaw and his hold on Louis drops, his arms hanging useless and trembling by his sides. It’s difficult to speak. Passed days flash in his head and are a tiny space in time compared to this moment. Louis looks up at him, and the faded curiosity blisters back in his eyes. He slips his palm past Louis’ frostbitten cheeks, brushing his thumb over the cheekbone as it settles on Louis’ neck. A blush is hinted beneath his touch.

To the pound of a quick pulse Harry leans down and tilts his head, grasping the silky strands of Louis’ hair between his fingers. Condensation prickles his parted lips and lidded eyes. Louis bites his lip and presses his hand against Harry’s chest to mark the distance. He stares to the floor and leans against Harry, his forehead resting in the other’s neck and his mouth moving against the skin there.

“Merry Christmas,” he whispers. He doesn’t try to move away.

The snow cools Harry and soothes his nerves, but his heartbeat thunders in his chest. With Louis in his arms all hopeful thoughts vaporize and leaves him with the boy on the windowsill with the delicate voice as solace. As Harry’s embrace falters Louis takes a step back and bares a tight-lipped smile. It’s meant for assurance but feels like a lousy pat on the back after running a marathon.

Harry bites his lip bloody, nodding. “Merry Christmas,” he says. Hope and dependence are torture devices for the soul, yet he’s reluctant to let go. As he lifts his foot to step forward and tries to speak distress flickers over Louis’ face. The boy lifts a hand to ghost over Harry’s mouth, fingers shaking, but lets it drop, backing out of reach. The smile doesn’t reappear.

He saunters down the stairs with light steps without throwing a glance back.

It’s time to head back down.

When Harry’s fingers graze his mouth they feel the tear in the corner of his mouth. Blood oozes from there and the tips of his fingers smear it over his pale skin. He dips into the wound and paints his cheeks maroon, wiping Louis’ touch away. Winter wraps around him and clears his mind. It fans his hideous colouring so the blood coagulates and strengthens the sticky edge to it. He’s glad the attic is devoid of mirrors so he can’t behold what he’s become.

After he’s rubbed snow over his face and cleaned up he hobbles downstairs. Louis isn’t anywhere to spot. Flies buzz around his head despite the low temperatures and the cloud of breath before his face. They gather in the kitchen to feast on the exquisite remains of a woman lying in the open freezer.

He knows Louis dived right back into the cellar when coming down here. Since that autumn evening he hasn’t stepped close to the kitchen aside from the forced occasions. Everything stinks rotten bodies and out of date groceries.

Harry thinks back to the large black bags he spotted in the hallway at their arrival. _Soil my ass._ He walks over to where they stood and moves his hands over the wall, down to the floor. He dusts them off afterwards. It didn’t occur to him that they might be in actual danger back then. The recent year has taught him valuable lessons.

It takes a moment to acknowledge the trembling of his lips. Tears gather in his eyes. He leaves them be and enters the corridor, his body shuddering as he climbs the ladder down to Louis and closes the door behind him. It’s too dark to see anyway.

 

It rains during their last the day in the cellar, and has done so the entire week. Water floods the room and destroys every carton’s contents. If the clock in Harry’s head still works spring’s arrival and the melting of snow would contribute to the flooding, but that he’s not sure of. Last night he woke up to Louis’ sobbing and lay submerged in washed up dirt from all around him. Knowing that he could do nothing to comfort he twisted his neck back in place and fell asleep.

They huddle in the broken armchair where no floating piece of cupboard can breach their skin, fingers locked together. Louis tugs at Harry’s curls, measuring their length and comparing them to each other in his palm.

Harry bathed yesterday. They slipped upstairs when the front door slammed and tires burned down the gravelled driveway, sneaking into the bathroom. A shampoo bottle from the early 2000’s sat squished in the mouth of a wooden box behind the toilet and a damp brown towel lay tossed over a chair in the hallway. The detergent scent kept the room neutral from the stenches around.

Harry undressed and slipped into the tub while Louis plucked with the soap and towel he’d obtained. Water immersed Harry to his waist but didn’t help to cover up. He took a good look at himself for the first time in months, stared at his too long legs and fingernails bitten to knives, wounds scattered down his arms and bruises shining on his abdomen. A long slash ran from his ankle to thigh. Pus leaked from the bottom of it, mixing in with the blood. It symbolized his disobedience and curiosity that had gotten him punished more time than he could count, the same disobedience that ripped his mouth apart.

The bloody memories vanished and his body slumped forth as Louis’ fingers ran through his hair and rubbed the shampoo in his scalp. Beneath the touch of the boy’s hands Harry’s muscles slackened and he closed his eyes, envisioning them in a bathroom back home, in a reality where their smiles were genuine.

He rests his palm on Louis’ chest and stares at the stripe of light high up the wall, where a waterfall cascades. At a stinging tug he winces.

“Too hard,” he says in a husky voice. Louis caresses his scalp and stuffs the lock back, his fingers indolent and tender as they move.

“Sorry,” Louis whispers. He starts up the massage with long motions.

A low moan rumbles in Harry’s throat. “God, you’re good at this.”

“Yeah,” Louis says. A smile sparks on his lips. “One of my many talents.” His voice is silk.

Harry fights the temptation to rip up his cheeks once again and lets another moan slip. Louis’ hands are soft even with the conditions he’s withstood, his tone light for the first time in days and his body warm. Water laps at their naked toes and the squeaks of rats trying to escape the flood cuts in Harry’s ears. For all he knows their corpses litter the cellar floor.

He leans into Louis’ hand. “Want me to do yours?”

The mild touches lighten and Louis eases out a final knot in Harry’s hair, patting it down and curling a long strand around his finger.

“This is fine,” Louis says and starts up again, combing and tugging. He leans closer as if to study his work and lifts his other hand to loosen a tangle. The tip of his nose nudges Harry’s ear. His breath warms the boy’s throat.

Harry sinks his fingers into Louis’ damp hair and forms a loose grasp, his eyes closed and lips parted.

“Do you think there’s a lettuce upstairs?”

“Doubt it,” Harry says. A small puff of dejection is uttered. He feels for Louis’ chin and tilts it up from his neck. “But we can always check. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Maybe not.” Louis chuckles. “Maybe we’ll die.”

“When did we swap attitudes?”

“When we ate other people.” Louis’ motions don’t cease or stutter and it chills Harry’s bones.

“There’s- We didn’t… we didn’t know. You can’t linger on it-”

“And that’s your place to tell?” The tone once sweet turns acidic, a contrast to his otherwise calm and indifferent conduct. He yanks Harry’s head back and hisses. “You begged to kill yourself. Don’t you say that I can’t think the same thing. Because you broke first means that I’ll be the one left alone while you hang in the attic. All you are is selfish.”

“I held you together up there, when you looked in that sack, when you begged me not to go. I did that for you.”

Louis caresses Harry’s additional mouth, his fingers as shaky as his breath.

“One of us has to stay sane, don’t we? Isn’t that how it works? That’s the only reason you did anything for me. You want to die first so you can escape this shit and leave me behind. Be realistic for God’s sake.” His hold on Harry’s curls lightens. In a sigh he rests on Harry’s shoulder, face buried in the other’s neck as his heart calms. It beats at an outrageous pace, thudding against their conjoined chests. Despondency bubbles in his gut and sprouts black smoke into his soul.

He caresses Harry cheek and strokes the long fringe away, his voice dropping into a soft murmur. “I don’t hold anything against you. Fine with the coddling and optimism, but don’t lie to me, Harry. Please.” He could slip a “love” into the sentence, with the way he addresses the boy in such familiar tenderness, like this discussion is one they have every night. This is a voice Harry wishes to get used to.

Louis’ palm rests on Harry’s throat after slipping from his hair in the

“Do you want to die?” Harry says.

Louis utters a pensive hum that drowns in the sloshing surrounding them, the squeaks of rats dying out in the void. The air is too humid to breathe. Louis shuffles down in the seat, slumps his legs to hang off the armrest and lies across Harry’s chest. He cups Harry’s chin and lets his thumb study every mar and blemish he can’t see in the black.

“I don’t know. Not today.” He pauses. “You’ve been my sanity these past weeks.” In the same breath he lands a lingering kiss on Harry’s cheek. His lips are dry, hot against the boy’s skin. They stain like ink. “Thank you,” he says.

The consistent lump deep in Harry’s throat falls apart. Fire blisters in his veins and heats him, opening his eyes. They’ve survived the year, and who’s to say they’ll live through the next night? Who’s to say they’ll die to a sunrise? Lying isn’t his style, neither is optimism. There is a hope to grasp and a world where they still lie in the alley. That’s not a lie.

At the thought of Louis sitting on the windowsill with torn attire and a smile lusting for freedom, Harry leans back in the seat and pulls his legs from the water, tucking them into the remains of stuffing in the armchair. A lazy hand ruffles Louis’ hair. The kiss scorches his cheek.

“I’m happy to know you,” he says, clasping Louis’ hand and slipping his fingers in between. It’s still opium for his mind. “I know you think I’m full of selfish bullshit, but know that I have never I lied to you within these walls. There is a chance that we’ll escape this crap and I aim to seize that. I’m not optimistic.” Dazed by Louis’ scent he tilts his head down and nuzzles into him. ”So, do you want to check upstairs for the lettuce? There may be some left over gin in the living room, or some avocados from last week. I saw him munch them to _American Idol_. We’ll go together.”

Louis chuckles, warm and quiet in Harry’s ears. His muscles relax and he circles his finger over Harry’s bicep. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I make you smile.” Harry untangles his legs from under Louis and moves them up to sit, gaining power over his limbs again. He rises from the forlorn seat. “What do you say we go on an adventure?”

“I can barely move,” Louis says, fisting the back of Harry’s sweater to keep him from going. Louis falls from the armchair in the attempt and splashes into the knee-deep water. In a whimper he curls together, hanging on to the fabric knotted in his hand to not dip his head below the noxious surface. A sliver of light drapes over his body.

Startled, Harry freezes, his eyes blowing wide to see the commotion.

“Are you okay?” he says, hushed, in case they have sudden company.

Louis tugs down his sweater so they both gather on the floor, drenched. He feels for Harry’s body and crawls to the boy’s side to lean. “I did a little falling. You disappeared and I thought you’d head up, I had to grab on.”

“No adventures today?” Harry says. A nod against his shoulder confirms the thought.

“I’m sorry; I can’t go up there, or anywhere for that matter. We’re ravenous lumps of exhaustion. I can’t go, and don’t you dare go off by yourself. He’ll eat you. Or he’ll tear out your intestines and turn you into a mannequin to put in the garden.”

Harry shakes his head as Louis’ pulse quickens again. “Okay, I won’t. I’ll stay here with you. We’ll go another time, whenever you feel alright.”

Louis smiles a wry curve with his lips. The black swirls around him. “I don’t want to weigh you down or cling like a child to your leg,” he says. For once no rats or rumbling waterfalls competes with his voice. “You shouldn’t be forced to deal with a burden in here, but I’m terrified to do this alone. I need you alive and well, and I’m a hypocrite for saying that you’re selfish because I’m just as bad.” The confession lightens his heart.

“You can’t believe that,” Harry says with a laugh. The lack of light in Louis’ eyes tells him otherwise. He leans back from the boy, clasping Louis’ small shoulder and rubbing his thumb over the bones there. It fits in his palm like a key in a lock. “Don’t think of yourself like that. Don’t apologize-”

Louis shakes his head. “I can-“

“I’m serious, Louis. You can’t degrade or doubt yourself now. This isn’t our fault. You’ll go insane if you think about that kind of stuff.”

“What happened to that God-crap? Where are _your_ doubts?”

“Oh they’re here.” He wipes the dirt from Louis’ face and rests their foreheads together. “Tomorrow we’ll sneak up and get some real, non-taboo food, regain our strength and run away.”

“How?”

“We’ll work something out. Die out there is better than to die here, right?”

Louis nods, a slow, relieved bop of his head. “Right. Any idea how to get past Psycho up there?”

“I will kill him if he tries to stop us.” The grip on Louis’ tightens and Harry’s eyes flicker over his face. “I will. We can’t live like this anymore. We can’t wait this storm out.”

They stare, silent as creaking disturbs the peace in the cellar. The bleak stripes of light aren’t enough to set the room afire, and so they wait for their numbed senses to adjust. Dry flakes of blood fills Harry’s mouth as he bites his lower lip apart.

Reality catches up with them in the form of a bang from above. Cold light blisters down on them as the door bangs open and a shadow silhouettes in the ceiling. The rats go wild, scrambling away in horror. The ladder falls only feet away from the boys and bespatters them arctic water and a rain of gobs follow behind. One sticks behind Harry’s ear.

No one needs to speak by now, the routine is all clear. Louis goes first, pushed up by Harry who wobbles on is legs and prays neither of them will fall before they reach the upper floor. He comes next and climbs two steps at a time to reach up before Louis is dragged through the hall and tortured in front of his eyes. If he blinks he’ll hear the screams.

When Harry stands upstairs the man has yet to make his move. His ashen eyes stare at the woeful day sweeping by with his back slumped and sweat dripping down his portly arms. Harry glances to Louis who nods towards the agape door, slipping away from cowering by the man’s side. They tiptoe through close together and steady one another, legs trembling and heads pounding.

Out of the narrow corridor they part and Louis falls back on a wall for support. Objects blur before his eyes and when the pulsation of blood to his brain overpowers his resistance he loses footing. Harry is there to catch him and lift him up, gives him something stagnant to focus on and speaks with soft words. Nothing stands still. All his organs are twirled into a lump and sucked into a black hole up his throat, his eyes rolling and the panic rising.

Harry places him down on the carpet by the door and hushes him. He slips his hand into Louis’ and squeezes in hope that the gesture will be repeated. Croaky hitches disrupt Louis’ breath and his fingers curl into Harry’s wet palm.

“Relax, nothing more will happen,” Harry murmurs as he lunges Louis into his arms again. “It doesn’t get worse than this. Hold on. You don’t need to struggle, I’m not going anywhere. You need your strength, Lou.”

“Sorry,” Louis says, “it wouldn’t stop spinning. I couldn’t do anything. It’s alright now.”

“Still…” Harry stands, leaving Louis beneath the coat hanger. “I’m grabbing you some water, don’t move.” On his way out in the kitchen he hears Louis call for him, his voice faint and interrupted by retching. Harry hurries up and snatches a clean glass from the cabinet and storms out again. A glass falls from the shelf and scatters over the floor behind him.

In a quick slide across the floor he sits by Louis side who guzzles the liquid when Harry slants the glass and moves the boy from the puddle of spit and blood. Stealing a hasty glance back he sees that the man hasn’t moved from the window. The layers of sweat and grease picture him like a shadow in the grey, a lost wraith floating in the hallway. There is no expression in his stand.

The glass rolls over the floor and Louis lies on his side with a light pant as he tries to keep the world frozen. Harry snatches it and holds Louis by the neck, searching his features for the needs he can’t speak.

“Is there anything you need?” he says, stroking Louis’ arm. “Tell me if there is anything I can do. How do you feel?”

“Fine,” Louis says. “Don’t go.”

The vomit immersed carpet attracts Harry’s attention again. Saliva and bits of potatoes soak the fabric and leave nasty yellow as mustard stains, trickling down the gaps in the floor. He needs to dispose that and the broken glass in the kitchen while the man is in outer space. Dread swarms his face as he faces Louis and lets go of his neck.

“I just need to clean up and I’ll be right back, okay? Can you try to stand?”

On his way up he drags Louis along. Louis leans on the door, rubbing a hand over his eyes and forehead. Gratitude emits from him as he gazes at Harry from under his palm and heavy eyelids, bearing a tired smile to complete the picture.

Harry yanks the carpet with him when he leaves.

Arms squeeze around him and tighten with each stumbling step he takes around the kitchen. He can’t understand why he hasn’t passed out yet or felt the nausea and dizziness take over his senses. Louis can barely stay conscious and here he runs around like he has six legs. Adrenaline and fear keeps him going while he moves in silence, listening for the man’s wrathful footsteps to boom over.

The shards cut his palm open when he throws them into the trash and blood spills on the floor and his clothes. There isn’t enough time to be cautious. The glass slips from his hands as he scrambles for a towel. Desperation grows inside him and he whimpers, cussing when the cuts start to burn. It consumes him and blackens his vision. When he regains awareness his hands are below the running tap, the burning increasing instead of easing. Tiny pieces of glass sit in the wound. As he yanks them out and more blood swirl in the sink Louis cries out. All thoughts twist into obscurity and the only thing worth focusing on is the happening in the hall.

He bursts through the kitchen, steps hazardous and heart hanging loose in his ribcage, banging like a bass drum. The hall couldn’t be farther away. He trembles as he leans in the doorway. Exhaustion finally bites its fangs into his neck.

The man wakes from his trance and seizes Louis with a blade scraping the surface of the boy’s neck, Louis’ chin tilted up and his body limp. A lowered laugh fills the room. Louis quivers in his grasp and snivels, his gaze on Harry. The man’s chin rests on Louis’ shoulder, back bent down to his height and dead breath in his ear when speaking. The voice vibrates with chortling, the usual slur right in place.

“You boys are pathetic. Messy. I let you bathe and eat, you drench my furniture in puke. I try to discipline you, you rummage through my stuff. My house. You whine and cry and beg and plead and never ever stop screaming. You’re kids. Never learn. Always naughty.” His fat lips move against Louis’ neck.

Harry’s gaze flicker over the scene. With eyes soft as he can manage he stares into Louis’ eyes, hoping to convey safety while his heart screams peril. Pants crowd his throat and he can only watch as blood trickles down Louis’ throat from the skin-deep slashes he received. All power he built up oozes away with each breath he takes.

“You like to destroy,” the man says. “To play. We’ll play together. I’ll do that and you’ll stop destroying my house.”

Knives adorn the wall just a few feet behind Harry. Five steps and he can cut the man’s guts out, save Louis. A minute of distraction and they can escape like their promise said.

The knife sinks into the flesh beneath Louis’ collarbone and he shrieks. Silent tears form in his eyes. The man tosses him to floor where he crumbles, down on all fours like a dog.

Harry steps forward with fiery eyes and twitching fists, tightening his jaw. He knows he can’t move yet. The deranged manner and stained weapon in the man’s hand are enough to convince him, keep him frozen as his hope mounts and sinks in rhythm with his breathing.

The man steals Harry’s attention and speaks in long words. “I want to play hide and seek.” The knife wielding arm falls to his side and he kicks down Louis by the chest. Louis hits his head in the coat hanger.

Harry’s nails dig into his palm, his breath staying even though his panicked eyes strain the façade. The scent of rain fills the room. “Okay,” he says. “We’ll humour you. Let’s play.”

_Five steps back._

The man plucks Louis from the floor and pushes him into the middle of the room, between the two males. Stood amidst them he stares at each counterpart, his eyes lingering on Harry in longing to run away, his body tensing to withstand a beating from behind. When he faces the man Harry sees the knots in his spine and the light shadow falling over his wan skin, more visible than ever.

“Hide,” the man says. “We’ll seek.”

The air thickens when the sky parts, rain welling out in escape from the soft cover of clouds and smatters down on the house. It builds up for lightning to strike any second and set the fields ablaze but holds back the artillery. Louis winds down the hallway as the first downfall occurs. His legs can’t carry him forth so he stumbles and grabs the walls. It’s just like with his sisters. They always played this.

Harry’s vision diminishes when the man covers his eyes and captures his hands in one giant fist. Louis fades from his inner picture, leaving the print of a scared boy. Same familiar breath enters Harry’s mind, the vinegary twang of spite and abundance of Pimm’s crowd in the quiet gasps. A double chin lies to rest on his neck.

“First come,” the man says.

Harry twists his hands free and rips the hand from his eyes. The smile and teasing tone is far away in the man’s voice. In the grey pits of his eyes foams a dead ocean that doesn’t possess enough power to breach the desolate shore. Dirty shimmer from the knife blinds Harry, and when he regains sight the only trace of Psycho is the vehement chinking of broken vases and photographs falling to the floor.

Somewhere sits Louis in hiding, waiting for the storm to subside.

Harry takes to the living room and his crestfallen looks change to ones with newfound energy as the smashing exceeds in volume around him. He’s got one shot.

In his passing through the rooms he steals a switchblade from where it’s embedded in the kitchen table. Nothing compares to the cleaver carried by the man and the blade barely weighs him down in his sprint to the basement.

Water soaks the darkness and obscures his sight as he plummets down into the black. It rises around him like pillars and sinks back to the thumping of his heart when he stills. The sounds above fade here in the thick masses of rotten furniture.

“Louis!” His voice shakes and his gaze flacks to the armchair by his right and the cramped space behind the ladder. Only rats break the shadow pattern. “Louis!”

He wades forward. Tears of frustration and red splotches dot his face, burn his eyes. He waits for Louis to call his name with his chest heaving and the light inside him flickering as the waves roll over his thighs. No sound comes back.

Light padding of feet thuds upstairs draws his attention. The noise is too soft to belong to the two hundred pound monster.

On his way up the ladder Harry cries Louis’ name and the anxiety grows as his palms slip on the wood. He falls onto the upper floor. The corridor elongates before him and twists into a labyrinthine jumble, the light padding echoing in his ears. There is no remedy for this frantic haze.

The echoes guide him to the bathroom where a drained tub fills up all spaces where Louis might hide. Grit sticks to its sides like a squiggly shore and draws horizontal lines across the ancient steel. A jar of yellowed teeth stands on the edge, their roots blooming red and black like soot. No matter what surface his gaze scratch he can’t detect any blood residue, neither the speckles of rust popping up. Without the bloody remnants of brawl the room’s essence become a shower in an asylum, interior sleek to withhold any seizures or fits.

Distressed by the scene, Harry’s heart falls into its dangerous cadence and pushes him back to run with clipped breath and the reflection of a gruesome world fading around him. His forced steps don’t carry him out in the hall before he hears a pain-riddled scream from the attic. Booms follow the noise and dust falls from the ceiling like glitter, wafts away in the damp breeze.

Bereaved of voice he can only mouth Louis’ name and lift the switchblade high as he clambers the steps up. Only falling a step short from finish the staircase yanks his foot and he tumbles down on the upper floor. The knife cuts a gash in his forearm Black blood dribbles onto his loose attire when he rises and forgets the method to breathe.

Two frames struggle by the open window opposite him, fists hammering and blood spattering around them. The man holds Louis’ legs together, slashing the boy’s chest and arms open by each thrust of his arm. Louis’ eyes shut when his lifted palm is impaled by the colossal blade, his knees twitching to break free and kick and an incessant surge of screeches poison the air.

Harry springs onto the man’s back and grazes his fat with the switchblade in attempted harm. He only hangs on by the rounded neck, driving his weapon in and out of the man’s chest. They roll across the floor, away from Louis’ trembling body. The knife gets caught in the man’s flesh. Harry’s hand slips from the handle as he tries to retrieve it and he throws a leg over the man’s belly to straddle him. He slits the man’s throat in his struggle.

Tears soak up the outlines of the room and the endless ringing in his ears resembles a detonated bomb. Everything fades into white snow falling outside the window, embedding the rye in morning frost. It’s like leaving his body for a breath. The ringing builds into a beating deep in his skull that quickens until it consumes him.

It brings him back to his own screams and his hands stabbing the slick knife into the body beneath him over and over, ripping traces like brushstrokes created with wavering focus. Guts puddle by his feet and his torso is sodded in another man’s blood, his own wounds oozing down in stripes over his washed-out skin.

When finally giving up on the mutilated body he acknowledges his actions. No pulse thumps beneath his hand and as he regards the hateful eyes they’re colder than ever. Nothing but those eyes can be recognized as this sadist anymore. The head lies separate from the body, connected by a string of intestines, and slashes spoil the body from nose to legs as blood seeps through the interstices in the floor. A vein spits blood from where the knife juts out in the severed head. It coats his legs with thick lumps.

Harry stands and tears off his sweater. As he scans the mess on the floor he wipes his eyes and inhales the wet earth. His hands blur under his stunned gaze. There lies a corpse by his feet and all he can do is thank God for letting them live. Sobriety overtakes the air and ceases his tears. A harsh patch of rain passes by and cleans his skin, folding him into a chaste embrace. His heart thuds without restraints. At last air presses into his chest.

He stumbles back with a moan and drops to Louis’ side. Rips divide the boy’s chest into a million scraps. Louis attempts to see the destruction on his body, his shaky fingers dipping into the wounds as his small whimpers puff like wind. They grasp his skin as if he can fuse it together by will. It resembles an old man’s last efforts to life.

Harry removes Louis’ hands from his chest and cups his chin. “Don’t mind that. Look at me, Louis. It’s fine. Keep breathing.”

Shivers sizzle through Louis like nightly tremors. Harry soothes them, caressing his face. Fireworks have exploded in his chest and left a disarray of pieces with no connection or glue. He’s an inconvenient mismatch. Harry can’t stitch him up.

He wheezes when Harry moves them away and tries to grasp the frozen world as his. Thousand suns flicker in his mind. Harry joins him on the floor, tracing a thumb up and down the lines of his palm and speaking words of incoherence in secretive whispers. Warmth bubbles in his gut where blood grazes down his sides like cascades.

“We need to get out,” Harry says. He keeps his hand between Louis’ collarbones and binds his relief each time he feels a heartbeat. Louis lies lax. “He can’t touch us anymore. You can go home to your sisters.”

Harry’s speech continues as Louis gasps and his flesh scorches. It continues when he closes his eyes and fumbles for Harry in the foreign darkness he meets and only ends when exhaustion imbues them both.

 

Harry wakes up cold, with Louis resting in his arms and tiny drops of salvation dripping through the ceiling. It’s dusk if he is to trust the shades of lavender flaunted in the eastern sky. Spotted through the window he sees sun shooting up the clouds and a golden shimmer licking over the naked room like fire.

He hauls Louis into his weary arms when he stands and makes his way down the staircase. Parked on the driveway is a bashed green pickup. He’s seen it leave through the forest many times when the man drives to work, so it’ll surely have petrol in it. Louis’ arm swings back and forth in rhythm with his gait.

The throbbing in his neck reminds him of the nights he and Gemma sat up playing Doom to four am and he played with his head cocked all the way to the right. “For better concentration” he claimed. In the morning he’d have to twist and turn his head for forty minutes before it cracked in place. When evening came they’d do it all over again.

It isn’t until Louis slips through his arms and slams to the floor without a word that his sense lights up. He picks Louis back up, blowing hair from his forehead and rocks him. Louis’ half lidded eyes don’t move. No dulcet breaths wisp from his mouth. The heartbeats are dead beneath his shredded flesh.

Harry swallows a scream and dashes for the car, yanks the door open and loads Louis into the passenger seat. He grabs the steering wheel and slams his head against it. The horn echoes over the damp fields, each beep louder than the previous. He hits it until he can’t feel the pain of everything else. Headache sets in sometime later and forces him to stop and cry into his steeled knuckles. In between his fingers he spots the barrels of petrol lined along the garage.

He leaves the door open and drops onto the ground, legs wavering and breathing stuttering. They’re far too heavy for him to carry so he drags each barrel inside before slamming the coat hanger down on them. Like vines the gasoline trickles over the floor and fills the room with an acrid stench. It takes away the edge of death from the air. He walks with one barrel through the hall, spilling its contents all over the morbid photographs and reeking fridge.

He collapses betwixt the kitchen and living room in tears that threaten to choke him. Vertigo washes over him with heady backstreet fumes of leaking sewers. The intoxication makes the world vibrate and stirs up nostalgia in his head. It stinks of abandon.

He finds a box of matches in the lowest kitchen drawer, in a jumble of bilateral forks and stacked cigarettes. Petrol sticks to his hands and knees where he crawl forward, dazed by the smell, and rolls outside to inhale the redolent evening. His gaze catches on Louis, tucked away in the car, eyes closed and body tainted in blood. With a flick of his wrist a match is tossed into the hall and flames fire up the walls and travels inside along the trace of gasoline. More follow.

To the popping of fire eating away at the rotten interior Harry stumbles to the pickup, shifting the car in reverse. The engine is still hot and growls when the tires spit gravel. Hadn’t it been for the rain dust would spiral around them. Chunks of black billowing from the towers of fire reflect in the rear-view mirror. Bits of charred wood fly with the breeze and spiral up to the sheltered sun, accompanying the clouds. They float like tiny sparrows and sail on the gusts behind the car until they reach the forest border.

The darkness of trees welcomes like a mother’s embrace. Harry slots his fingers with Louis’ cool ones and takes a deep breath.

The car halts. Harry squeezes the steering wheel and regards Louis’s tranquil features, his hewed torso. He turns his gaze forward to the forceful headlights.

“I can’t take you with me,” he says. Flies gather in the ocean of light. He shakes his head, rests it against the dashboard. “Fuck, Lou. They’ll deem me insane- there will be people there.” The word melts like sugar on his tongue and his nails scrape Louis’ hand when his fingers fold. From the foliage come strings of a bitter sunset that bite into his eyes. Realization cracks his skull open.

Together they skid back onto the gravel and with burning tires bop over the fields. He slips his hand from Louis’ and stops the car next to a clearing bordered by birches where an immense rock extends to the soft raspberry sky. The ice coat on the ground thaws beneath Harry’s bare feet where he disrupts the serenity by sniffing and trudging to the back of the vehicle. Frost grips nature even at this hour, glistening on the treetops high.

Streaks of yellow paint colour the loading platform. There in the back a shovel and rope fights for space alongside an antique shotgun. With the shovel in hand he takes Louis in his arms and wanders off to the rock where the first load of earth is shovelled from the ground.

The giant torch in west continues to flame as a mountain of soil forms by the side of the hole in which Harry stands, digging deeper and deeper while throwing glances at Louis’s ghostly shape. If he pays no mind to the blood he can see a halo above the boy’s head.

When he stands waist-deep in dirt he crawls to Louis and cradles him close. They lean on the rock, watching the shack crumble to ashes and flare in the night. Harry traces his fingers over Louis’ icy lips. His tears heat them up.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says. “I don’t want this.” Beside him lie the shovel and the mossy black pit. Leaf covered branches sway over them, the rattling hollow and eerie. It’s like the grey autumn afternoons spent in the house. Twigs would snap and hit the windows as pans clattered in the kitchen and they cleaned each other’s wounds with wads and spirits found in the man’s stash of alcohol.

The temperature decreases and he lowers Louis into the hole, staring at the body until all light left is the moon. Soon after the only trace of Louis is the fresh earth in the clearing and an old shovel hid beneath the pines and moss next to it. No headstone marks the spot.

Harry drives along the path fast enough to see the world as a blurred movie scene. The trees part into an open landscape and a road with signs he pays no attention to. No cusses from enraged midnight drivers or blues-playing pubs reach his ears. He’s left with the blood on his skin and he’s running out of petrol.

Mist obscures his vision and floats like a bad omen over the countryside, uncovered by the streetlights. It parts a way for the roaring vehicle that skids along the asphalt. Only when the car jumps over a bump does Harry shift his focus from the road spread out before him. It’s nearing a new day.

The pickup rustles to a stop in a ditch outside of a small town. The sign next to his steaming car says _Welcome to Sunny Hills_. He slams his head against the steering wheel and a jarring beep from the horn scares every deer and hare in the vicinity. Hysterics take over him and he scratches the seat and screams into the dashboard. Blood bubbles from his temple where he hit the interior. The rotten gasoline still occupies his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue will be up this month. This isn't the end, don't worry. Please share your thoughts and I'll see you in the final part x


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the fastest I've ever written a chapter. I will blabber on in the end note of this, so no need to worry, you can continue on and read the final part. And here, a playlist for this fic: http://open.spotify.com/user/verrogap/playlist/7cI1lxLSJJFGyihNGB2MO7 Just a quick thanks to all of you for sticking with this until now x

**Seven years later**

Zayn is always late. The day his older sister wedded her soul mate he cursed and slammed the horn at a traffic jam up front whilst his phone buzzed with anxious consolations and wonders. He arrived two minutes after the ceremony.

When his niece played her first rugby match a call from a displeased client came in as he stood by the field. Each time her team scored he tugged his hair in annoyance or faced away. Two points he saw executed.

For his uncle’s fiftieth birthday he sat on the edge of his tub drenched in his fluids and launched messages to his ex like spitfire. Never had he felt so miserable, with the clinker stained with cheese and bacon and egg and the screen on his phone blinking _Jess_ in rhythm with his retches. He never made it to the grand party.

Today he’s early. Long laces and shoes appear wherever he desires to step and he clings to the wall and family portrait on the wall when his silent steps shuffle in the hallway. With a beer coated in condensation dangling from his loose grasp he scans the forgotten coats and sweaters laid over the sofa and musky scented Mountain Dews dominating the dining table. Arranged in a way that exposed a homemade table tennis field the sight makes his hand grip the beer and groceries tighter and toss it all onto the sink. The morning sun sparkles through the champagne sprayed on the left window. Vacant spaces in the walnut shelf tell about books removed from their assigned places to be hidden or stacked to bleachers for the table tennis audience.

Before he can pester with the residue of dark dough in the sink he leaves through the living room and pushes the bedroom door open. It swings away in a light motion and bares to him the only sleek room left in the flat. No wall hangings decorate it; no obnoxious gifts adorn the nightstands; nothing but the long silk curtains move in the breeze of an open window. Cotton sheets drape down the framework at the right side of the bed. The left is a mess of limbs and bad breath.

Goose bumps prickle Zayn’s skin and he closes the door behind him. With incoherent steps he makes his way over to the bed and sits. He runs his palm up the man’s leg, regards the lidded eyes and tee-clad torso.

“Why does the kitchen smell like apple pie?” he says. It’s not an unusual occurrence that Harry sleeps with his eyes open, so Zayn smiles when a reply comes.

“It’s chocolate.”

 He leans over and brushes Harry’s hair away from his face. Grey eyes flicker up to him for a second before they dive back down to the ticking on the nightstand. The hand that isn’t squeezed beneath Harry’s head and pillow spans over his ribs and pinches the fat.

“And why is that?”

“Because I baked. Had to improvise ‘cause we’re out of everything.”

Zayn lowers his head and nuzzles his nose along Harry’s cheek. “You could’ve told me, I bought groceries.”

The sheets fall aside as Harry rolls over for leverage on his elbows and sighs at Zayn. The early morning displays his plump lips in a soft glow and light dips into his locks to set them afire. Streaks of black shimmer in the tips, remains from his latest dye job.

“I wasn’t awake then, now was I?”

His heated skin stands a chilling contrast to his cool strands which Zayn caresses. With sagging lids he watches Zayn move the touch to his jaw, via the scars to his lips. Cocoa latches onto the rosy skin.

“Rachel looked for you,” Zayn says. “I bumped into her on my way back and she started babbling about you and you magic hands.” Warmth surges up his arm when Harry smiles. “Anyway, I told her that now was unfortunately not the best time to catch you, though if you had some spare time I’d tell you to dump the Saints in her mailbox. Was that alright?”

Harry’s gaze drops to the bracelets woven skin-tight that cages Zayn’s wrist in vibrant materials.

“Of course. I should get to it right away. Just need a second.”

“You need a week with how you are now.” Zayn presses him down by the chest and stands braced above his weary shape. “If what you truly want is for me to march over and tell Miss Rachel that I priority your health and not her choir nor cookies then I will do so. Tell me whatever you want and I’ll do it, but please, rest.”

A heavy arm curls around Zayn’s chest and Harry’s fingers wander along the knots in his spine. The muscles ripple and their legs huddle atop each other, the heat built underneath the duvet seeps into the cool air.

“Therapy does suck the life out of you,” he says. His hands curl round Zayn’s neck and he digs his heels into the man’s thighs. He slides further down the bed and nestles into the cotton, shielded from the world by Zayn’s body. Sweat glistens on his forehead.

Zayn rubs the cocoa from his lips. His focus wavers between Harry’s cool gaze and his smooth collarbones.

“We can go another day,” he whispers.

“I’d love to.” Harry pulls him down, presses their foreheads together. “You know I’d love to. I’ll go by myself if it feels funny to you. I should see him, Zee. My therapist agrees.”

“Not necessarily today. I know it’s been long since we visited but you shouldn’t feel guilty about it.”

Harry drops his legs from Zayn’s and caresses his cheek. A smile trickles back onto his lips.

“I don’t mean the cemetery,” he says. “I will go back to the house. To see the real grave. Not some tombstone bought by his family with golden letters and two dates. It’s a nice tombstone, but that’s not where he lies.”

Confusion blazes in Zayn’s eyes and he sits up. Harry groans at the lack of body heat and follows, hair flat on the left side of his head like a wall. Hairspray from last night holds it upright.

“The actual house? Are you sure? Do you remember where…?”

Harry shakes his head. “Sometimes I see fragments, like a road sign or a crooked tree by my side. I remember the frost and birches, and Sunny Hills, a town.”

“Sunny Hills you say.” The bed creaks as Zayn pulls out his phone. Wrinkles of concentration tatter his bronze skin. “Okay. It’s only forty-five minutes down south. Close to Leeds. Has won ‘Best kept town’ for the past seven years.”

Before Zayn can stop him Harry stumbles out of bed and into his jeans and staggers to the kitchen. Zayn’s steps thud behind. He grips the doorframe while Harry drowns his hair in the sink, shakes it clean and rubs a towel through it.

“Where are you going?”

Harry pinches his eyelid and studies his red eye in a dusty silver plate propped against the wall. “I’m driving to Sunny Hills.” He sighs when arms encircle his waist and pull him back.

“You’re still drunk, sweetheart,” Zayn murmurs into his neck. “You can sit in the passenger seat and tell me where to drive, but if you consider going out on your own I’ll lock you up in here and we’ll go next week, alright?”

Light waltzes in the golden beer bottle on the sink. A fly circles the rim. Harry yanks his squeezed arm from Zayn’s embrace and grabs it.

“We’re meeting today,” he says between guzzles and coughs. “You can join us whenever.”

Zayn tugs the beer from his mouth. “Has something clogged your ears? You can’t drink, especially not my-“

“I need it.”

“Harry, stop.”

“Don’t command me. I’ll stop in a sec, calm down.”

Zayn grasps his wrist and tugs him to the living room, bottle forgotten as its contents dribble into the sink. Whines emit from Harry’s throat as he’s thrown onto the sofa and caged by his boyfriend’s knee on his chest. He laughs, eyes wide and sober.

“This is making me very uncomfortable.”

Zayn picks the lid off a box under the coffee table. In his hands shine a pair of handcuffs, wired in soft black leather. The beer act was a waste of freedom, Harry realizes to the click of the cuffs around his wrist and the floor-lamp behind. Zayn tilts his head up in a quick kiss.

“I’m going down to buy another beer and when I come back I will drive you to Sunny Hills and we will visit your lover’s grave and handle your issues. Meanwhile you won’t utter a peep or slither out of the house. I have your keys.”

Alike his black eyes, Harry’s quiet words flare. “You promised Leigh you wouldn’t cuff me again.”

“But Mister-I-have-a-masters-degree-in-psychology isn’t here now, is he, sweetheart?”

The couch scrapes the floor when Harry thrashes, his attempts futile. His kicks and twists rub the handcuffs deep into his skin. Zayn frowns when small drops of blood roll down Harry’s arms and nestle into his hair.

“These are supposed to be safe,” he murmurs.

“I’ll tell him,” Harry says. The cuffs burn new rips in his wrists, a familiar experience that halts his motions and leaves him breathless. When he rouses Zayn dabs a damp pad on his wounds. The pain is as sharp as his tone.

“Don’t touch me now.”

Zayn’s gaze fleets to his. He drops the pad on the glass table and seizes Harry’s jaw. “I’m not hurting you. You are quite a handful but never would I hurt you. You need to realize that. Don’t disturb our lovely neighbours.” With a peck each to Harry’s marred cheeks he walks out in the hallway. From the living room sound enraged bangs. Zayn straps on his boots and locks the door as he exits with Harry’s screams tear through walls.

“This is not a part of my treatment! I’ll phone Gemma again!”

When left to the chaotic flat Harry tosses his head back into the navy cushions. Zayn doesn’t tend to listen during these times, despite the hour-long conversations he and Leigh-the-therapist has after each session. Harry hears them through the door, listens to the peaks of their voices and with careless words discuss his health. After they come out with faces of stone Zayn tugs him away from the building without an explanation, like a petulant child.

Angered by the memories Harry kicks the empty Mountain Dews from the table. They spill out on the carpet Zayn got for his 28th birthday. A gift from his parents, he’d said. Fucking hypocrites.

Harry’s phone lies on the nightstand, and though the rooms are adjoined he can’t move an inch away from the sofa. Opposite to the carpet he holds the lamp dear. His helpless position reflects in the TV and he can’t help but whimper at his bloody wrists and smile. Cosmetics don’t help. They only take away the red marks, not the stitches. During his breakdowns he often tears them up again and Zayn has to rush him to the hospital.

The flat barely has any isolation and the hairs on his naked legs rise to the sky. Though invisible to the naked eye demons lurk behind the furniture. Their fangs and edacious eyes gleam behind the fridge, shadows snake up and travel through the rooms along the cracked cornices. These are the fragments he sees.

Half an hour later the door slams shut and two beers clink together as Zayn kicks off his shoes. He finds Harry slack and shivering in the corner of the sofa, beneath a mountain of cushions and blankets, gazing into the TV like it’s the gates of hell in disguise. Zayn crouches before him and holds his chin, but Harry’s gaze doesn’t waver.

“If I look away he’ll approach me,” he says in a slow, hoarse tone. Blood drips from his lips.

“Jesus, Harry. What have you done?” Zayn slips out the keys from his pocket and unlocks the cuffs. Harry’s eyes are dead, staring. In a moment Zayn walks into the bedroom and joins his man again with a frown and pills in hand which he forces down Harry’s throat. “Take your fucking meds.”

Zayn holds him down until he swallows, his eyes ready to pop, and he pulls his arms beneath his chest and rolls onto the floor. No haunting shadows hang over them when Zayn looks to the empty TV screen. Harry’s wrists bruise in red and the leather on the cuffs is torn to reveal the iron beneath. Threads of spit hang from his mouth and his whines grow into throaty cries. As Harry writhes on the floor, assembling himself and taking the hit of the pills, Zayn goes to dump the cuffs in their bursting trashcan, cursing them both. He takes a second to cool down by the mirror in the hallway, scanning his features for signs of impatience, rage, or disappointment.

Out in the living room Harry’s breaths calm. He coils up on his side and with shaky fingers grasps his throat. The darkness under the sofa and TV stand diminishes in time with the return of his sobriety until he only sees the dead flies and dust rats twirling. The lump in his throat has yet to leave.

A hand settles on his thigh, moves up to his cheek and desires him to look up. Zayn wears his sad, inquisitive eyes, the ones deep enough to see the black hollow of Earth.

“Are they gone?” Zayn says as he removes his hand.

Harry shrugs. They weren’t there in the first place. He isn’t stupid.

He stands, rubbing his face. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Zayn’s gaze strays to the red stains on Harry’s skin when the man goes to dress. He’s thinned out ever since Leigh prescribed him meds and scheduled sessions two times a week. Never has he hallucinated as much as now. It can’t be a coincidence.

 

Harry isn’t present during the ride and only looks away from the ephemeral fields and flourishing meadows to sweep his vacant gaze to the steering wheel. The bruises eating him contribute to his broken demeanour. By the hot rumble of the engine as they level a bump in the road he blinks to life. They stop by the side of the road. Zayn’s voice startle him, pulls him out of his psychedelic dream.

“Where to from here?”

The sign in front of their car reads _Welcome to Sunny Hills_. He shakes the shivers from his spine and takes a moment to find his voice.

“Forward,” he says. “Somewhere in the forest. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

They roll along. All the cars passing fuse into colourful lines of memories. He needs everything to rush back now, but it leaves him cold as every time he reaches out to grasp. He can’t blame the pills for this. Heat enfolds him the closer they come, like a greeting. It soothes him when he instructs Zayn to swerve left, and after long, onto a secluded path littered with pine needles and cones.

It’s dark as night beneath the dead branches. They sight no animals or bugs where they bump on. He hopes everything beyond these trees has decayed. No one deserves this fate.

“Why did you never tell me about Sunny Hills?” Zayn says ten minutes into the everlasting gloom. His hand settles on Harry’s hand and he rubs his thumb in large circles to coax words from his boyfriend. He’s slow to form a complete circle.

“I wasn’t ready,” Harry says. The touch chases away the odd heat. He frowns and looks to Zayn whose face reveals no emotions. “Are you upset with me?”

Zayn throws a glance to him and offers a squeeze to his hand and a faint smile. “Of course not. Are we getting closer?”

Harry swallows a sigh and looks ahead at the strings of light hanging by the end of the tunnel. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s right there. Close.”

The landscape unfolding before them kick-starts Harry’s reminiscence. Up on a faraway hill lie the ruins of a hovel, now only charred wood and black speckled concrete. It’s as if smoke still puffs to the violet skies. Zayn keeps his mouth shut when Harry’s breath hitches and the man points to an overgrown clearing by the forest stripe. Harry cups Zayn’s elbow and holds him in a grip of stone as the car digs through the rye and finally stops when grass roll under the tires.

The car bumps back and the engine shuts down. Harry flies out of the car and pushes through the wilderness. Nothing stands to tell him where Louis rests except a familiar rock the size of their flat. It rises taller than the young trees flourishing around the clearing, a cold monument below the sun. Moss soaks its glittering surface.

More fragments return to him when he sweeps his gaze through the surroundings. The birches, the cellar, Louis’ face. He collapses right next to the forgotten monument and digs his fingers down the damp earth. It’s been years since he could last recollect Louis’ features without blurring out nose or mouth. Time took away two years of his life. Without the memories of the house he has nothing to remember Louis by. He isn’t allowed to look in yearbooks from school.

“Oh, Louis,” he sighs to nature. He curls together and hugs his leg, fishing for an explanation he can’t see. These prescriptions fuck with his mind. Nothing but closure can rock him to sleep at night. “Please, help me. You need to explain-“ He glances back to the car. Zayn leans on the hood and scrolls through his phone with a frown.

Harry hides his face in his jeans in unease as the sun rips away from the clouds. “I heard your laugh yesterday. It’s happened before. Leigh said it had to be you, but… I’m not sure. It could have been him. Isn’t that awful? How I don’t know which one of you I’m running from?”

Submerged in the swaying grass he shovels away earth from the ground and sniffles. It’s a small comfort as opposed to his ignorant boyfriend. Vivid images crowd his brain. Only he and Louis now.

“Right after the day I escaped I woke up in my house. Gemma sat there reading, next to me, and she screamed for mum when I opened my eyes. They must’ve found me unconscious or whatever. There was a lot of crying that day. I wasn’t let out of their sight for a whole week. When I showered one of them leaned against the door and waited for me to come out. But never did they ask anything. Never did the question my blank stares or asked me to take part in any activities. I mostly read old magazines all day, so it’s not like I bothered anyone. When three days had passed we announced to the public that I’d come home, somewhat unharmed. The police wanted to see me, of course, and they started asking questions about you. We were gone quite a while, you know.”

Harry sees Louis kneeling before him in the kitchen, sobbing and grabbing his clothes as if he’d float away. Why is unclear to him. Once the recollection of past events started they wouldn’t be able to stop it, he knows that. He recalls Louis’ light touch in the dark, all the stories he’s forgotten over the years. Hushed conversations drill into his thoughts.

“Anyway,” he says, frowning while keeping the telepathic assault at bay. “I had to talk to your family, eventually. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Your sisters have grown up now. Felicity is taller than me, and nearly Daisy as well, can you believe it? When I visited, pictures of you all hung on every inch of every wall. She was so tiny. Did you believe she’d outgrow you one day? It was nice of them to not frown at my scars. I had to tell all of them. All were there when I told them you were dead. You have a courteous mother, Lou. She asked me if there was anything I needed, if I would like dinner or something. When I declined she begged to hear the details. I should have been gentler towards her, but I was shaken up. So, I told her what I remembered. No sugar-coating. After that she politely asked me to leave.”

The rainy hours of a naked morning, Louis sleeping on his shoulder during the moment of silence they have before disrupted by acidic cigarette smoke, before the rain of invectives and punishments. Burning photographs drift to the blackening skies. Supressed memories bare themselves before his eyes. He smiles through the raging headache. He should smile.

“I gave you a lot of shit. We spent a year of our lives tangled together among rats and knives, and I know I was a dick to you in the beginning, and though I’d like to say that I still know your smell, that would be a lie. I don’t remember you… but, I think you saved my life. You kept me from following you, and people say I’m getting better. Zayn believes I’ll be alright someday. ‘Progress comes slow’. Even with the meds it feels like you’re here, sometimes. It’s cold here without you.”

“Me? I fool myself. I’ve become a liar. Most are the lies revolving around you, and this house. I’ve been going to therapy back and forth. First time was a month after I’d returned. Mum said I saw you on the street and at night you snuck around our house, waiting for us all to fall asleep. You took your last breath in my arms. I understand that. Mum thinks I don’t, neither does Zayn. My therapist said that this, seeing you, finally, would help me find closure and let you go.” He shakes his head. “Haven’t I done that? Didn’t I sink you below earth with my bare hands?”

With a quick look to Zayn he sees the man leaning with crossed arms and lip between his teeth. Patience and worry fuse in his elegant sharp-cut features. Harry waves him over and stands, picks the dirt from his nails. Around him the wind howls like a thousand war cries, tortured and strained. The wet grass tickles his ankles that are only covered by a thin layer of ripped denim. Closure is a strange thing.

In a moment Zayn is by his side and combs through his untamed hair, tugs it in a way that shoots pleasurable sensations down his spine. He holds a moan and twists his damp face into Zayn’s chest as they walk away. By the open door he hesitates. Zayn hops in and caresses the steering wheel to the metallic rustling of a boosted engine. Harry turns to the wilderness and gazes to the rock. The sense of comfort folds around him.

“That whole foundation thing you advised me to apply on my scars?” he says. “I still look like the Joker. Sorry. Advising wasn’t one of your vices, was it?” No one comes to answer him so he bids the clearing a silent goodbye and exhales.

Zayn leans over for a kiss when Harry gets in the boiling car. His face screams questions and his fingers twitch, but to Harry’s surprise they drive off without a word. Silence is to prefer, he reckons.

Asphalt carries the old vehicle forward and a familiar city of exhaust and broken dreams they call home breaches the sunrays, towering before them. When they pass the first metal building Zayn clears his throat and his gaze strays from the road. “Are you going to phone Gemma?”

Surprised, Harry looks to the phone he twirls between his fingers. He shakes his head. “No, that wouldn’t be necessary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at a loss for words. A year ago from today I wrote the beginning lines of my first fanfiction, so to finish the biggest project I've ever taken on this particular day is a magical feeling. Thanks to you reading this, and you who have left kudos or commented, or even bookmarked it. It means more than you'll ever know. A huge special thanks to I-Don't-Know-Man-I-Just-Want-Food. They left a comment on this three months ago and it's what keeps me motivated and in an overall glorious mood whenever I doubt myself. I want you to know that you're a lovely person. With that said, there won't be a sequel to this, because why would there be? I hope you've enjoyed this. Until next time, you wonderful people xx


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